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Re: psychiatry is an ougrowth of society

Posted by alexandra_k on January 2, 2015, at 14:45:14

In reply to Re: psychiatry is an ougrowth of society, posted by alexandra_k on January 2, 2015, at 14:18:27

I have to do an economics of healthcare paper first semester. I have trouble with economics. Not because of the math. Or, maybe because of the math. I haven't done enough economics to know...

Mostly I have trouble with economics on conceptual grounds. That very first thing they do of taking something meaningful and important like 'happiness' or 'quality of life' and they recast it into something they can measure. thereby... changing the subject.

It reminds me of Moore... Who was a philosopher. He was looking at the notion of 'good'. At how you can't identify (reduce) what is 'good' to anything else. If you identify the 'good' with 'what makes people happy' then you can always ask of whatever it is that makes people happy - 'I know that makes people happy - but is it GOOD?'

It reminds me of psychology... How they take a notion like 'consciousness' (where at least part of what is crucial is the subjective aspect of it) and then they do a bait and switch. They say they have solved the problem of consciousness (or that they are making significant progress on it) and proceed to talk about brain states or something else equally objective.

We start with something like the 'quality of our healthcare system' and somehow or other we end up with something like the idea that if we change the diagnostic criterion on this dx then we can reduce the number of people who are entitled to y treatment by half thereby cutting down the number of people who are waiting for treatment. Or if we change up the regional boundaries on the coverage area of a particular health board we can say we have reduced the number of people with y condition by a third, perhaps eliminating an epidemic... Or whatever.

Dishonest. That is what it is. Nobody in their right mind can possibly think that such moves improve the quality of our healthcare system. Along the way... The point was lost. People got hyper-focused on 'interim measures'...

Like how some people get hyper-focused on 'interim measures' like studying for 'pick the middle' and 'identify the next object in sequence' thinking that this will actually improve their intelligence...

The person has fallen out... and along the way... the point was lost.

But the idea seems to be... That what one person needs / wants... Is unsustainable at the population level. It simply isn't possible for all the people in the world to have the health care that they actually deserve / need.

That might be true... But I think it is also true that we could do a hell of a lot better than we are doing presently with what we have got. I simply don't understand why there needs to be... How many more managers than actual healthcare workers? I simply don't understand why managers need to be on how much money compared to actual healthcare workers?

It makes me angry how much people get paid to push paper around... Doing... I honestly don't think they care much what they are doing much of the time... So long as the status quo is preserved and they can afford the best health care (in virtue of how much money they earn). All is well in the world (fundamentally) - right?

i think that part of the problem is that the privaledge of some is crucially tied to the impoverishment of others. our old prime minister Helen Clarke said something about how our (fairly socialist) aim isn't that everybody have exactly the same... It is more that there are realistic prospects for moving up. The problem with that (since wealth / poverty is relative) is that the only way one has realistic prospects for moving up is if others have realistic prospects for moving down... Why would the haves (those with power) want that? They are more focused on preserving their power than they are focused on the good of society...

If you want a healthy population then you need to start with the children. Providing free healthy food at school. Lots of it. So it isn't appealing for them to fill up on junk food even if they have opportunity. And physical education. Not just rugby for all... But different options... Not just caring about the ones who seem talented... But everyone...

But of course we don't want a healthy population. We need for most people to believe that the reason they don't have more is because... They don't deserve it. They make bad choices in life etc etc etc.

It is nearly impossible to eat healthy food (enough of it) on the current domestic purposes rates.

This is why the government workers don't provide people who are on welfare with food plans / suggested grocery lists that work within their budgets.

The budget advice is about their stopping with smoking and drinking and making 'unhealthy food choices' like chips and doughnuts. But I think people are driven to those things... In part...

Anyway... I think I might have been the only person to have stood there and said 'well, you do me a budget that works then'. To have said 'here's my grocery list receipt what would you have done different'.

It isn't good enough.

 

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