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To focus on the list of killers, I think you touch gently on some of the underlying social and personal issues that motivate response. For example, people are afraid of breast or prostate cancer because they see it as affecting them simply because they’re female or male. But lung cancer? They see that as more a behavioral issue because people know smoking causes lung cancer. And heart disease, particularly coronary artery disease? Isn’t that to people a series of personal choices one makes to eat this, not that and to drive, not walk, etc.
In other words, some of the results seem to reflect an underlying issue of American ideology and thus may reflect the cost of that ideology. People want to believe the market generates the best results. You and I may believe “best” implies lower mortality, better health outcomes, etc. and use this data to argue the market is obviously not very good at identifying and correcting these problems. But believers in markets as an ideology see a benefit – call it “liberty” – to which they attribute value. The amount of value attributed to the ideology seems to be whatever is necessary to overcome the costs associated with the ideology … so you can’t win arguing with them. We can, however, use this data to quantify in certain ways the costs of ideology. (But of course we already do that by, for example, counting the number of gun deaths, the number of children killed by guns left lying around, etc.)
An associated problem is that ideology has a need to proclaim its virtues. America has the best health system, bar none. Repeat. The issue isn’t that this is wrong but that there is a need to say it. We can attribute that to ignorance but certainly experience looking at the internet, TV, etc. shows that you can stuff people with facts and they’ll ignore them, deny them, distort them, etc. I have learned over time to consider this fact denial as a form of argument, one which rather inchoately includes other values and considerations that trump facts. See above: if you argue we have the best system, you argue for a form of “liberty” that to you has more value than quantifiable contrary evidence. Don’t want to be told to get health care, then you must argue that lots of people dying, lots of pain and lots of wasted money is not worth as much as your perceived “liberty” interests.
This raises the long-term question: do these people believe over time their ideology will in fact generate better quantifiable results that don’t need to include “liberty” to be the best? I don’t know. I think they do. I think they tend to believe God or something else smiles on them and on us if and only if we achieve a certain standard of “liberty”. This enables them to make these arguments from the safety of knowing we’ll never achieve this standard and thus they can commit to perpetual struggle for their ideology without ever having to judge its failure.
In other words, some of the results seem to reflect an underlying issue of American ideology and thus may reflect the cost of that ideology. People want to believe the market generates the best results. You and I may believe “best” implies lower mortality, better health outcomes, etc. and use this data to argue the market is obviously not very good at identifying and correcting these problems. But believers in markets as an ideology see a benefit – call it “liberty” – to which they attribute value. The amount of value attributed to the ideology seems to be whatever is necessary to overcome the costs associated with the ideology … so you can’t win arguing with them. We can, however, use this data to quantify in certain ways the costs of ideology. (But of course we already do that by, for example, counting the number of gun deaths, the number of children killed by guns left lying around, etc.)
An associated problem is that ideology has a need to proclaim its virtues. America has the best health system, bar none. Repeat. The issue isn’t that this is wrong but that there is a need to say it. We can attribute that to ignorance but certainly experience looking at the internet, TV, etc. shows that you can stuff people with facts and they’ll ignore them, deny them, distort them, etc. I have learned over time to consider this fact denial as a form of argument, one which rather inchoately includes other values and considerations that trump facts. See above: if you argue we have the best system, you argue for a form of “liberty” that to you has more value than quantifiable contrary evidence. Don’t want to be told to get health care, then you must argue that lots of people dying, lots of pain and lots of wasted money is not worth as much as your perceived “liberty” interests.
This raises the long-term question: do these people believe over time their ideology will in fact generate better quantifiable results that don’t need to include “liberty” to be the best? I don’t know. I think they do. I think they tend to believe God or something else smiles on them and on us if and only if we achieve a certain standard of “liberty”. This enables them to make these arguments from the safety of knowing we’ll never achieve this standard and thus they can commit to perpetual struggle for their ideology without ever having to judge its failure.
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