Supposedly in the last ten years 56 people have perished in Toyota accelerator-related accidents, for which reason the company sent out 10 million recall notices. We’ll come back to that number in a moment. But if they’re found to have done something negligent, yeah; absolutely fine them, hold them to account. Not because I think Toyota won’t fix the problems otherwise (Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda seems to have a pretty good grasp on the company’s long-term interests) but because it’s only fair to hold all car makers to the same standard.
Now about that number: 56 people, over the years. Just for the hell of it, let’s double that number and compare it to Pinto deaths and SUV rollover deaths (to say nothing of people who died in regular cars struck by jacked-up SUV’s), or even the roughly 16,000 Americans who die every year from internal bleeding caused by NSAID pain relievers. Or 18,000 annually from MRSA, which is directly attributable to overuse of antibiotics in medicine and especially in the livestock industry. Or four hundred thousand deaths every year from smoking.
And we’re holding congressional hearings on Toyota accelerators? I know this song: it’s “Let’s ding the foreign car maker!” Except that the Toyota Camry is the “most American-made car”, so that doesn’t even make sense.
How about if we get a sense of proportion, then? Toyota accelerators should be an NTSA issue. Instead let’s turn the cameras on Senators who don’t seem to care that 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance. Let’s find out exactly why their elected representatives are so satisfied with the status quo. Maybe their campaign financing would offer a clue.
NOTES:
- New York Times: Deaths rising for lack of insurance, study finds
It’s the same reason that Congress has to have a hearing about drugs in sports every few years – it’s an attention-grabber. Toyota may have been negligent in looking at this problem, but if they were I suspect that will come out in the wash. Tracking down problems that can’t be reliably reproduced, which the accelerator issue appears to be, is often difficult and expensive. It may require either a software code audit or a complete simulation of the circuitry involved, or they might never find it. We consumers may never feel assured that they found it, even if there are no reports of such problems for a couple of years.
It’s upsetting when you can’t trust your car to do what you’re telling it to. I remember feeling like that when airbags were introduced and there were reports that they deployed spontaneously. There’s enough to be concerned about when you’re behind the wheel, without having to be concerned about stuff like that.
Proportions and probability. If you knew how to get people to understand and care about the two you could be a rich man. But its tough and I have no idea. I try to explain things to people at work in small doses as issues come up but they just don’t care. I got a coworker sick that is popping “Airborne” and then is spouting a bunch a crap about vaccines. Next thing I know two more are popping the Airborne. One of them told me about how pills are the number 1 cause of sewage blockage at treatment plants because they don’t fully dissolve due to all the fillers and crap used to hold them together. So the $20 you spent on vitamin C was really a waste of money. Yet he had a bottle of Airborne sitting right there… :-/
I guess it just goes back to having a fundamental understanding of science and math which are missing in this country. But then I still wonder sometimes if that would fully help.
I agree – Congress seems to like to waste people’s time because it puts them in the headlines. “Let’s ding the foreign owned companies.”
But for health insurance, I think it is another attention grabbing scheme more than national emergency. I like a quote from the article you linked: “Wilper’s team can’t rule out other factors that could have affected the results.” What they’re really saying is let’s blame something politically attractive since we really don’t know what the major problem is.
No, David, what they’re really saying is that they can’t rule out other factors that could have affected the results. What you appended is your interpretation.
I have experienced what it’s like to face serious health problems without insurance. And the health insurance companies like it that way: they are economic parasites who don’t want to cover sick people. If I lost my job, I’d lose my insurance that I have now, and no company would touch me.
It’s not an emergency if you’re covered, I guess.
My reason for saying it is not a national emergency is clarified by numbers – it’s coldhearted, and yes, I too have the luxury of having health insurance (and relatively good health) now, and I can understand why people who don’t would be more upset about this argument, but here goes.
You compared 56 deaths to 16,000 deaths and asked where is the sense of proportion?
My question is where is the sense of proportion when it comes to the health insurance question? Populations estimates have us at over 305 million. There are plenty of arguments and statistics that report a variety of numbers on how many people there are that do not have health insurance.
But let’s stick to deaths. I would compare 45,000 deaths to the Census Bureau’s reports over 2.4 million deaths in 2006 (apparently the last year they have compiled). Still less than 2%. We have nearly 10% out of work, and if that was corrected, more people would have health insurance.
And when you say they’re really saying that they “can’t rule out other factors that could have affected the results,” I can think of only two ways to interpret that: something may affect their results. Either the number may be wrong or the link to lack of health insurance is wrong. Either way, I have to take the “45,000 deaths related to lack of health insurance” with a large grain of salt.
Which is why I need health insurance. Blood pressure. (Okay, bad pun intended)
Health coverage should not be tied to having a full-time job.
Who is the government willing to provide for now? Elderly, children, and disabled—aka People who are not currently employed!
Those of us who work only part-time, or who have a job working full-time hours outside of a corporation, or self-employed, or divorced, need to be able to have reasonable medical help also.
For me it comes down to this: Americans are paying more per capita for health care coverage than any other modern country, but we are getting less. Our lifespan is less, our infant mortality is a national embarrassment, and our general mortality and morbidity stats make us look like a bad bargain.
Why is this? It’s because insurance companies are in the business of denying care. And they spend millions of dollars spreading misinformation, trying to keep the sweet deal they bought and paid for, from our political system.
The linked article is supported by serious research in a peer-reviewed journal, and by related meta-studies and by the assessment of the Congressional Budget Office. The deaths figure is pretty darn solid; it isn’t some anecdote on FOX news or a talking point slogan. It is tautological that they “cannot rule out other factors”. No study can; it’s an admission a scientist would make that a politician will not.
Illness itself has a cost to an economy. The deaths from lack of insurance coverage are a rough proxy for time away from work caring for children, shortened work lives, use of emergency room, and social services. The deaths themselves are the tip of a social morbidity cost iceberg.
I understand that conservatives don’t actually care when someone suffers or dies, though I’m a bit puzzled how they reconcile that with Christianity. But WHY are they willing to accept higher cost with lower return? That just doesn’t make sense… unless they just don’t know.
The FOX news approach is that we have this great free-market health care system and the rest of the world has an inferior socialistic system. But that’s a vast oversimplification. First of all we do not have a free-market system. Our health insurance industry is exempt from antitrust laws, and all that implies.
How many conservatives are even aware that in Canada, rich people buy private supplementary insurance? Or that in Holland, there is a two-stage health insurance program, half private and half public, and everyone is required to buy into it? Yet at the bottom line they pay far less than we do and get a better result.
Not saying that’s the way to go – I prefer France’s pure socialistic system myself because it delivers the most bang for the buck, er, Franc. But the point is that the people defending our health insurance companies for the most part don’t even know what the alternatives are.
Universal coverage is something that every other modern country manages to accomplish, and in every case at lower cost with a better outcome than we do.
The U.S., state, and local governments already pay for the health care of roughly a third of all Americans. Between active military and veterans, senior citizens, prisoners, they represent some of the most at-risk people in the population. Yet these programs deliver care at a much lower cost than those in the general population who are lucky enough to have insurance.
Of those who are left, insurance companies take money from roughly three-quarters (all but 50-60 million). They pay benefits for very few, including many millions who need it. Plus, as George mentions, we pay more per capita than any advanced country for medical care.
For-profit health insurance is probably the worst system possible for paying for health care, yet this is the system that most of our government, both Republicans and Democrats, are determined to continue using.
And it’s killing more than 40,000 of us a year.
Calling this insane is probably an insult to crazy people.
Actually, I believe the French system is a mix of public-private, but I could be wrong.
In Canada there is supplemental insurance that adds coverage for what provincial insurance does not cover. Supplemental coverage is almost always through employee benefit plans. I would guess the percentage of “rich” people buying secondary plans or care go be infinitessimally small.
The French system does have a private component and a thriving private sector, but they also have fully socialized coverage for all legal residents. Winds up costing them less that way.
I’m kinda using “rich” in a very general sense, of “people with cars, houses, and discretionary income”. In our country, it means something different: the top one percent that controls 42 percent of the financial wealth.