I feel like there's a hundred other issues higher on the list of things Americans aren't covered for...
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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Such as retirement, in general.
Roughly a quarter of the population has a significantly negative net worth (more debt than assets) and another roughly quarter has a zero to slightly negative net worth.
Basically that means a quarter of people will have to survive off of Social Security alone, while making interest payments on their debt. There are not many parts of the country right now where anyone can actually rent an apartment or afford a mortgage payment off of SSI alone, so better hope you already own a home, or you are in a rent controlled apartment.
The significantly indebted quarter of people will basically have to sell everything they own and borrow money from friends and family while still having to make debt payments, all on only Social Security and then they /might/ be able to afford a crap apartment or a spot in an old folks home. Realistically a lot of them wont be able to pull this off and will try to move in with their children or go all in on an RV. Or just become homeless and die.
Oh. Right. Social Security is projected to go bankrupt in about 10 years. And the Republicans might manage to just eliminate it before then.
So uh yeah. The other roughly half of people either have stock market based retirement plans that are sufficient for some kind of actual retirement, or are basically financial try hards who have /some/ ability to comfortably retire based on stocks, but if the stock market does not go up forever, continuously, they will basically join the group of people with functionally zero net worth.
Probably about 70% of the people with any ability to possibly comfortably retire are in the -tenuous- category and 30% range from -confortable- to -have more net worth than many small countries-.
This -tenuous ability to traditionally retire- segment of people will ultimately betray any purported moral or ideological positions they claim to have had their whole lives and do basically anything to ensure that their retirement ability doesnt diminish or disappear, including any kind of austerity / public benefits cutting / tax lowering policy / legalize usury and debt based imprisonment or forced labor / type policy they can find to juice the stock market, which will further fuck over the already less well off group.
The actually well off will continue to laugh a the poors as they historically always have.
America: Fuck you, I got mine. Go off and die now.
So great how we'd rather pay for new mass use of experimental drugs than addressing our nations problems with mental health, accessibility of healthy food/lifestyle, and poverty
We can and should do both.
Besides, being overweight contributes to a lot of other things that are worse. These drugs may contribute to a significant decrease in health services needs.
I didn't list those specific things because they're more important than obesity, I listed them because those are the root cause of a tremendous amount of our obesity and it would be much healthier to address those causes than to medicate.
Why not both?
Get out of here with that empathy -- there's profit to be made!
What a great system.
People shitting on your comment but the majority of Americans should eat less food overall, and change the type of foods, exercise etc. the weight loss drugs do just that, make you eat less and you can do that for free with a little mental discipline
I'm sure obese people have never heard of that before
I'm sure obese people haven't tried hard enough.
Even on "My 600 lb Life," the doctor gets on them hard about actually fixing their eating habits before bothering with surgery.
That's because it's dangerous to have weight loss surgery if you can't change your behavior even a little.
The bariatric surgery helps keep them on the right track.
The diabetic drugs help stop the food cravings in the first place, it appears to be a good option for people who have overwhelming signals from their body to eat.
Those are two completely different reasons, and medically they should be treated differently.
Is the exercise equipment just out of reach too?
Only forks are in their reach.
there are ways to do this which are probably better than taking drugs. ancient methods with prehistoric origins lost to time
Pretty sure famine isn't ancient.
Can't cure what won't pay for endless treatments.