Which is why I said practices and not treatments.. which I assumed you were also talking about since treatments are performed on the patient and generally do not expect much of them after leaving.

All the blood pressure tests in the world are not necessarily going to stop people from smoking, eating meat, being stressed, etc.. Increasing awareness =/= increasing health if people are not willing to take the appropriate actions to reduce the cause. Yes, blood pressure medicine helps, I get that.

Also, to get specific, can you give me one example of a preventative treatment that helps with a poor diet? Cause I can't think of a one.

Edit: I do agree with you with examples like vaccinations and surgical procedures, btw.

My step mother had her stomach surgically shrunk to prevent complications from obesity

The way I've been using health is the physical wellness of the body. If you take a healthy person and an unhealthy person, and give them the same sickness they will have different responses. Whatever sickness you want to use as an example (Strep in the case of Occult) isn't really important to my point. General health is not determined by temporary sickness, especially in the case of Occults shitty example of strep which is self-limiting and doesn't even need to be treated in a healthy person (possibly an unhealthy one? idk im not a doctor).

@PetSounds - yes, I never said that healthcare has absolutely ZERO affect on population health. My argument from the start was that it is not the primary factor elph was making it out to be. If you go back a couple pages you can see my other responses.

Yeh and? Both my parents had that done too, they still eat like shit. Surgery can't change a poor diet (which is what I asked about not obesity).

The only treatable thing you mentioned was depression, the rest require people to *wait for it* TAKE RESPONSIBILITY *gasp* for themselves.

To put it a different way:

On one level it's just a truism that personal choices contribute to Americans being less healthy than their Western peers

but this is a meaningless thing to say without asking why do they make these choices

what we find is that the primary cause like so many other societal ills goes back to inequality

well in her case, it also doesn't allow her to consume sugary fatty stuff without puking it up

It's ironic to me because she's big on the personal responsibility mantra without realizing she's just benefiting from her social class, but I digress

and yet you're still blaming the healthcare system.. people are not making those choices because they have shitty healthcare.


Edit: I mostly agree with the bolded, but I don't have time right now to finish responding. I'd like to take a look at how inequality plays into decisions like smoking, diet, alcohol, etc.

not having access to doctors that can help them make decisions is a factor here yes

and in general lack of access to healthcare means less healthy people, minor problems will be left untreated and become major problems, people will often die from these preventable causes

this is one in the same with inequality, the wealthy actually get the best care in the world here

You're dead to me. I thought you were better than this, DWV.

Strep throat Overview - Mayo Clinic

I'm going to stand by my original stance that access to healthcare makes for a healthier people. I feel like I got good old horse sense backing me up.