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[Mrhappyface]

Regardless though, America still has the obligation of producing and researching medical tech for much of the world. It also consists of much of the nation's economy.
http://selectusa.commerce.gov/industry-snapshots/health-and-medical-technology-industry-united-states

[10ebbor10]

Not really, while the majority of the research is done by US companies, the research itself often takes place elsewhere. Europe has several leading universities, but the role of India and other new economies is also significant.

[Mrhappyface]

Yes, that's the thing. I would really really love if the mentality of most of my fellow Americans would start veering towards better health and an increase in physical activity. The average American is in far poorer health than most developed countries, and that's more of a cultural and social aspect than a lack of healthcare. Tell us your secrets to a better lifestyle, Europeans. Maybe then we could afford universal healthcare.

[GlyphGryph]

One of the best ways of bringing down healthcare costs is to catch problems early, before they get expensive.

The US strongly, incredibly strongly, incentivizes waiting until a problem is at it's most expensive point before treating it, and incentives the hospitals to charge as much for it as possible on top of that (because they have to legally pay out of pocket for the people who can't otherwise pay, despite getting no legal financial assistance). Culturally, our medical system is also pretty piss-poor, with low quality standards and a lowest-bidder mentality, and the regulation that exists seems to serve primarily to pad pockets rather than improve the system. (Yes, I believe we need both more AND less regulation - more of the good kind, less of the terrible kind. Of course, in the good ol'USA the terrible kind is the only kind that's popular, because people can make a lot more money off of it!)

The whole thing is honestly just a mess, and it's got little to do with US culture. Sure, that contributes in some ways (the primary contributor not being our various states of ill health but our propensity to be awfully spread out compared to Europe, which makes everything more expensive), but it's nowhere near the major player in our healthcare cost woes.

[Mrhappyface]

Yes, and I believe that promoting better fitness and diet would be a core factor in eliminating many problems. Type 2 diabetes is still one of the biggest yet easily preventable medical conditions in the American South and West.

[Vector]

A lot of that is issues regulating food companies and with poverty, though, not a need to tell people that they need to diet and exercise.  Like, you can't task individuals with solutions to institutional problems.

[Mrhappyface]

Actually, there's been a sudden boom in obesity and diabetes after the boom of the 1950's, so it's not necessarily linked so much with poverty. But you are right about the food companies.

[Vector]

Well, what I'm really trying to say is that the cheapest, easiest to get food is no longer grits and raw potatoes, it's now manufactured stuff with HFCS in it.

[Mrhappyface]

Well, what I'm really trying to say is that the cheapest, easiest to get food is no longer grits and raw potatoes, it's now manufactured stuff with HFCS in it.

Which is actually, in the long-term, more expensive than the natural thing. Hehe, makes you wonder.

[Frumple]

... what? If you're including health costs et al, maybe. But only maybe. Or perhaps overall environmental costs and whatnot.

But in dollar amounts, to the consumer, right now? Not even close. At all. Natural, unprocessed stuff is dollar for dollar more expensive in the states than other options. Sometimes significantly so. Joint like walmart you can generally expect to pay 2-3x more per unit of measurement for unprocessed, natural stuff (and because of how incredibly predatory places like Wallie's prices are, beating their price is not a very likely thing to occur), on the low end. There's a couple of exceptions (potatoes, ferex, are often cheaper farm grown or whatev'.), but they're exceptions that highlight the rule.

So... back up that statement, please. It flies entirely in the face of the last half decade or so of grocery shopping I've been doing, down here in Florida.

[Mrhappyface]

Overall production costs, I'm sorry I did not make that clear. I grow most of my vegetables in my backyard, stuff like cucumbers, potatoes, watermelons, and tomatoes. And the initial costs to setting up a garden wasn't that bad either. Paid off within a few weeks.

[Vector]

Because everyone can afford a backyard...

[GlyphGryph]

The amount of food you can pull out of a backyard garden is pretty damn limited and isn't nearly as cheap as you seem to be making it out to be unless you're really lucky with weather, space, and soil quality (which means you've probably sunk a lot more money into getting some decent property of your own or you're mooching off the hard work of someone else subsidizing your effort). Having had multiple attempts to grow food fail pretty miserable because the conditions where I live (unless I want to spend far more than the food is worth on soil, fertilizer, upkeep, care time, etc. and so on) are useless for growing pretty much any sort of edible plant.

We've managed to keep ONE onion alive. That's it! We can't even get radishes to grow properly, fucking radishes man. And this was after about 30 hours and a couple hundred dollars of digging and remodeling to make things more amenable to plant life. At least we can grow some pretty flowers now (a significant improvement over "nothing but straggly groundcover and grass), but even they don't look so great and you can't eat 'em...

And food generally takes more than a few weeks to grow to a point where it is useful as food, so I very much doubt the validity of your story.

Dandelions actually grow alright, but a full dandelion bed still feeds a family of two for, like... 4 meals. If that. And you've got to make sure you pick them at just the right time, and even though they grow they certainly don't grow that fast. And that's pretty much the only edible thing we've succeeded in growing.

Even then, growing food is always risky. There's a good chance the whole crop gets eaten by weavel moths and you wasted all your money for nothing.

[Frumple]

Because everyone can afford a backyard...

Or even if they can, are living in an area that can support gardening without notable investment. If you've got to water, fertilize, etc., so forth, so on, it can pretty quickly cost more than what some retail joint's charging in order to try and kill competition. Least where I'm at, you've got to beat pricing that's usually coming in at <10c per ounce on a lot of (canned/dried/frozen) vegetables (including transportation on your end, if you're only grocery shopping once or twice a month and driving yourself), 12-13 cent/oz on the upper end. Even discounting the potential cost effect of the time investment gardening can take, that can get pretty hard to beat. As GG ninjas, yeah.

I mean, there's a reason these people are pricing like they are. Killing gardening is part of their business plan, just like killing mom and pops joints is. Even beyond that, there's pretty significant economies of scale to agriculture that makes back yard gardening considerably less cost efficient, in most situations. Think they're actually trying to work around that or somethin', but I've no clue how well (if) that's proceeding.

[MonkeyHead]

Subsistance farming - its hardly the solution of choice is it.