Comments on: Three Critiques of a Duty to Be Healthy http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/05/three_critiques.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:04:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Is Ideology-Free Health Reform Possible : HEALTH REFORM WATCH http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/05/three_critiques.html/comment-page-1#comment-64178 Is Ideology-Free Health Reform Possible : HEALTH REFORM WATCH Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:35:31 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2007/05/three-critiques-of-a-duty-to-be-healthy.html#comment-64178 [...] Yet I found the most compelling talks to be Uwe Reinhardt’s and Maggie Mahar’s.  Far from preaching “middle of the road”-ism, both found fault with the incrementalism it usually results in.  Mahar noted that the Massachusetts plan does not have a compelling model of controlling costs–and that without cost control it is virtually impossible to accomplish sustainable reform.  Reinhardt underscored the degree to which policy elites in other countries consider the risk of bankruptcy due to medical bills in the US “obscene”–a value commitment hard to square with much rhetoric of personal responsibility. [...] [...] Yet I found the most compelling talks to be Uwe Reinhardt’s and Maggie Mahar’s.  Far from preaching “middle of the road”-ism, both found fault with the incrementalism it usually results in.  Mahar noted that the Massachusetts plan does not have a compelling model of controlling costs–and that without cost control it is virtually impossible to accomplish sustainable reform.  Reinhardt underscored the degree to which policy elites in other countries consider the risk of bankruptcy due to medical bills in the US “obscene”–a value commitment hard to square with much rhetoric of personal responsibility. [...]

]]> By: Daniel Goldberg http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/05/three_critiques.html/comment-page-1#comment-53727 Daniel Goldberg Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:56:59 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2007/05/three-critiques-of-a-duty-to-be-healthy.html#comment-53727 Fascinating. One of the projects I am currently involved in is tracing the extent to which our theories of disease causality inform public health policy (and I think the effect is quite large, indeed). If we tend to think that our lifestyles have a greater effect in causing disease, we are very likely to promulgate and support different public health policies than if we, as you suggest, overestimate the extent to which our behavior influences health. I'm curious as to the reasons why you believe this, though. Naturally, one of the chief attractions of the lifestyle theory is that it renders so much of our health a factor of personal responsibility, which is obviously culturally appealing. Do you think this appeal masks some weaknesses in the lifestyle theory? The individual responsibility ethos has a dark side, of course, most notably seen in the attitudes towards obese persons. Fascinating. One of the projects I am currently involved in is tracing the extent to which our theories of disease causality inform public health policy (and I think the effect is quite large, indeed).

If we tend to think that our lifestyles have a greater effect in causing disease, we are very likely to promulgate and support different public health policies than if we, as you suggest, overestimate the extent to which our behavior influences health. I’m curious as to the reasons why you believe this, though. Naturally, one of the chief attractions of the lifestyle theory is that it renders so much of our health a factor of personal responsibility, which is obviously culturally appealing.

Do you think this appeal masks some weaknesses in the lifestyle theory? The individual responsibility ethos has a dark side, of course, most notably seen in the attitudes towards obese persons.

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