A sustainable insurance market is also obtainable without genetic information. In fact, without any patient information at all. Information allows segmenting the population to allow for diverse premiums. Without any patient information the premium will just reflect the whole population risk.
We can argue if this system is fair or not (I don't like these discussion because they hinge on the definition of fair, which is silly); but your point is about economic feasibility, and it's quite feasible to have a health care system without digging up dirt on everyone.
And, as a libertarian, I have to admit that this country has one of the most inefficient health care systems in the world. The amount of money we spend for results that are worse than any other industrial country is obscene!
Why? A medical degree is mostly a marathon of hard work and dedication. Laudable. I couldn't do it.
But does it take wits? The medical researcher probably. The person who figures out the dosage, maybe. But the person who through rote learning knows of the top of their heads the proper dose? Meh.
The people on this forum probably average 130 IQ. Not everyone here could do a medical degree. But most are probably smarter than their doctors.
Because it MY data. It's voluntary now, but will it always be?
You're a free market guy. What would you say about insurance companies deciding they'll only cover people who release all their data to them.
Now I don't have a choice to release my data, do I? (since I'm forced to have insurance)
How do I know what my doctor does with my electronic data? Legally, I have some assurances. Except we now know how much these legal assurances are in the electronic domain.
This is soft paternalism. Freedom is being able to smoke a cigarette in your car with your 2 mo. old daughter in the back waving your middle finger at any holier-than-thou puritan who has a problem with it.
My prejudice (I'm putting it out there to be honest, not judgmental):
In general I have little patience for big people who eat poorly (I couldn't care less if someone exercises or not) because I think it's so easy to be the right weight if you cut stupid calories.
Easy for me to say, I'm 6'1''. When I was 20 I weighed 165 lb, I'm 180 now. I smoke when I want, stuff my face with whatever food I want. My doctors cheer my good health.
However:
I really despise a doctor talking about anything that isn't on my agenda. My health, my money, I lead the convo. For me a doctor is someone, probably not as intelligent as me (or most people on this forum) who has domain knowledge and access to medical services I need.
Cut the crap and give me the service I'm paying for not a bloody lecture.
Dentists can stop with the floss already. I know, I don't care.
Im so healthy my doctor told me I need to drink more and consume more salt. I don't need HR knowing anything about my health. F them and F crypto-fascists who argue this is a good thing.
First there are many countries in Western Europe with no significant colonial history. Greece for example. Italy's colonial history is insignificant.
As to being glad that we grew up in Western Europe during the cold war, I have an Albanian friend who is now a professor of economics in the USA. He said that, although living in communism as an adult (Albania had the worst communist, btw) would have sucked, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anything.
I've never met tougher mofos than my Albanian friends or my wife. They know how to have fun, how to behave in groups and nothing scares them. By comparison how many of my peers (or myself) suffer from anxiety, are anti-social (being on your phone in public is very anti-social) or just weird?
From your document it seems that the researchers ignored the most energy intensive part of the process!
From your document:
"Purifying and crystallizing the silicon are the most energy-consumptive parts of the solar-cell manufacturing process."
"To calculate payback, Dutch researcher Erik Alsema reviewed previous energy analyses and
did not “charge” for the energy that originally
went into crystalizing microelectronics scrap."
The way I understand it, the calculations don't charge the most expensive part of the process by arguing that, being scrap of the semi-conductor business, its already been paid.
I'd like to see the math myself. I have the suspicion that there's funny math involved, like when the nuclear industry forgets the cost of warehousing nuclear waste for 100 000 years.
My most pressing question is how the capital costs are factored in. China built a huge PV capacity and arguably that made the price of panels collapse. Also, the semiconductor industry had been indirectly subsidizing the PV industry by upgrading their old fabs.
I also really don't understand how PV can be cheaper than Concentrated Solar Power < literally just a bunch of mirrors aimed at a normal thermal plant.
Lot's of funny numbers, lots of questions, few open source gitted models available to play with.
A sustainable insurance market is also obtainable without genetic information. In fact, without any patient information at all. Information allows segmenting the population to allow for diverse premiums. Without any patient information the premium will just reflect the whole population risk.
We can argue if this system is fair or not (I don't like these discussion because they hinge on the definition of fair, which is silly); but your point is about economic feasibility, and it's quite feasible to have a health care system without digging up dirt on everyone.
And, as a libertarian, I have to admit that this country has one of the most inefficient health care systems in the world. The amount of money we spend for results that are worse than any other industrial country is obscene!