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by majormajor 1623 days ago
Surely you aren't suggesting that having more hospital beds per capita in the US is causing more deaths? Capacity is hardly the only factor in how Covid is hitting the population (and having more hospital capacity reducing pressure to lock things down will itself affect the rate of spread).

For instance, per https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-cases-deaths-... Canada has seen 66K cases per million and 807 deaths per 1M cumulatively. The US is at 180K and 2515. Slightly different numbers than yours, but close enough. Deaths/cases to date is very similar, 1.4% in US and 1.2% in Canada. So the difference in total deaths is largely policy and behavioral, the aggregate policy across the US has largely been one of "at this point we can't eradicate it so we need to live with it as best we can" where even the liberal US states remain quite open compared to initially in 2020 in the face of recent surges. Whether or not that's the right policy is separate from whether or not that policy would've even been realistic without as much health care capacity.
1 comments
hamter 1623 days ago
no im suggesting that 'yolo lol we have more beds' is meaningless if u end up with worse outcomes. and let me be clear that 66k per 1M cases and 807 deaths per 1M is better than 180K per 1M And 2515 per 1M.
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majormajor 1623 days ago
You won't really know which is better until 2025, 2030, sometime like that for total deaths due to COVID numbers. Canada is hardly out of the woods. Push the date to 2040, 2050 if you look at things like what were the long-term impacts on different policies on people who didn't die of COVID.

You still aren't engaging with the point under discussion, though, which has become publicized due to COVID but exists independently of it. Spending more on healthcare contributes to having an overall better health care system, but the US suffers due to large problems of access and distribution. Regardless of payment structure, I would argue in favor of continuing to spend more on health care than other nations; we have the money, it's a good use of it.

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