Quote:
Originally posted by wonderwench
1) How on the Goddess' Green Earth is comparing Monaco relevant to the U.S.?
2) The U.S. has immigration and a large mixture of cultures with various lifestyle habits.
3) The only way that this information could be at all meaningful is if it were accompanied by the rates of mortality due to various causes. To assume that it is due to the poor having no access to health care (which is false, btw), takes an enormous leap of faith.
4) The U.S. doesn't even make it on to the list of the top 100 countries for the share of population living below the poverty line.
5) Consider the affect on the crime rate of the failed War On Drugs. Then factor in how the drug trade involves violent gangs - and the mortality rate of gang members and violent felons. I wonder what the U.S. life-expectancy would be if such deaths were adjusted out?
|
1) The US is part of planet earth isn't it? I agree that some nations have such small populations (IE Andorra) that they are statistically irrelevant but dozens of other nations are comparable in that they have a population of millions, are industrialized, etc.
2) So do Canada, Britain and France - they all score better than the US in terms of life expectancy.
3) I did not assume that, though others may. I asked the question and provided a variety of possible answers.
4) But perhaps that is telling? Why are the other industrialized nations doing better? Most do have a lesser level of poverty I'm guessing due to greater social safety nets that exist in said nations.
5) That's like saying I wonder if Iraqi life expectancy would be higher if there hadn't been a series of wars over the last 20 years, or if Ethiopian life expectancy would be greater without devastating droughts and famine. Every country has issues that will worsen its average life expectancy - be it the sorry state of the natives in Canada, AIDS in Kenya, infanticide of baby girls in India and China, or the high suicide rate of Hungary and Finland. Sorry, you cannot factor out any one aspect of life in a given country.