highthief

Despite being the wealthiest nation on earth with purportedly the best equipped hospitals and the best trained medical staff. the US lags behind 47 other nations in terms of life expectancy.


http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/...at_bir_tot_pop

Do you think this has more to do with lack of access to proper medical care for the poorer segments of US society, too much McDonald's, a higher stress way of living, high murder rates or some unaccounted for factor?

Please note, not a slam on the US, so put the gun down!

brianna

i vote for number one -- the poor have no access to health care and thus bring our average down.

wonderwench

You gotta love statitistics!

How on the Goddess' Green Earth is comparing Monaco relevant to the U.S.?

The U.S. has immigration and a large mixture of cultures with various lifestyle habits. 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.

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.

I could make a strong argument that the "crimes prosecuted per capita" stat has a strong influence on life expectancy.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_adu_pro_cap

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?

Oakland is a good microcosm for this theory. The murder rate in Oakland is quite high - we receive much negative press about it. Virtually all of the murders, however, are limited to drug related gangs. The general population is not affected.

ARTelevision

This would be due to the effects of media-induced bad lifestyle choices - we lead the world in those.

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highthief

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.

SinisterMotives

I'm sorry, but what would someone who enjoys the luxury of running to the doctor everytime they get a splinter in their finger know about the poor being unable to get health care? Have you ever seen how they treat you when you show up at the hospital and admit that you don't have insurance? Have you ever had surgery without anesthesia just because the doctor assumed he wasn't going to make any money off of you? Hell, I have problems that have needed fixing for years that I keep putting off till "someday" when I can afford to have it done right, rather than hold my breath waiting for some MBA at an HMO to approve it.

wonderwench

SM - yes, I have decent health insurance. Considering my husband's chronic illness, this is something I have worked hard to ensure we keep in place.

I do not wish to belittle the challenges and suffering that the uninsured endure. I just don't think that lack of insurance is the main driver for the statistics sighted in the main post.

SinisterMotives

I think it's a significant factor in those statistics. I don't expect to live any longer than my sharecropping grandfather did. Not that I'm going to miss the Spectacle once I do check out. Maybe I'm the fortunate one after all.

highthief

I don't profess to understand the US healthcare system completely. As I do understand it you have a level of medical access if you are, say, on welfare - but only to certain hopsitals and more importantly, you don't have a primary health care provider (stuck with whatever clinics are available to you, never seeing the same doctor twice) and may not have access to the more advanced procedures and medicines, is that correct?

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SinisterMotives

That's about the size of it. Like everything else in America, health care is all about money.

wonderwench

Would you rather have the ability to earn your health care and be free to choose - or to have a shrinking pool of health care resources allocated by a government bureaucrat?

SinisterMotives

I'd just like to be able to expect that when I pay for insurance from an HMO, I'll actually get treatment instead of a runaround. That's the point of paying for it, isn't it?

highthief

2 points/questions:

A) Do you believe your tax dollars should go towards funding a healthcare system for the less well off even if you personally choose to opt for private treatment?

B) I guess I like the Canadian system better in that while the healthcare system as a whole is somewhat underfunded, by and large access to primary and emergency healthcare is equally available to all - from the richest to the poorest. And it may be a factor in our greater overall life expectancy.

SinisterMotives

Sometimes I think that it would be better to let a liberal government beauracracy manage it rather than a tight-fisted corporate beauracracy because the government wouldn't be tempted to put profit margins ahead of people's health. And yes, I realize that people in countries that have socialized medicine often wait months for treatment; but since I'm used to waiting for years anyway, that would be a step up.

wonderwench

No, I do not. I disagree with the concept of "positive rights". The government has no business being responsible for people's needs. Government involvement just results in highly bureaucratic and poorly managed charity. Private organizations do a much better job - I'd rather donate my money to more effective organizations, which I would be able to affford to do if half my income were not seized in taxes.

The demographics of Canada are quite different than those of the U.S., and the most likely determinant of the life expectancy differences.

seretogis

Abso-fucking-lutely correct, as Mr. Clay would say.

There is no "right" to health care in the consistution and there never should be. Those who understand what America is supposed to be about will agree that expanding the size of the Federal government to be a healthcare or insurance provider is contrary to the very goal of the US.

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SinisterMotives

The government provides a lot of services that aren't based on Constitutional rights. Your argument is correct in theory, but this is the real world.

KMA-628

What I find interesting is the spending rates related to the quality of care.

(I don't have the "facts" in front of me, I am drawing from memory. I will get them and post back)

I remember seeing a spreadsheet showing the amount spent by our gov't on a per capita basis. It is actually higher than most other countries.

Hang on, I remember where I saw it.....

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KMA-628

It is from a book, so I can't link the source.

"Per capita spending on health care is greater in the United States than anywhere else in the world today. On a per capita basis, we spend more than twice as much as citizens of Luxembourg, Austria, Australia, Japan and Denmark."

-Roger LeRoy Miller, "Economics Today", 2004

FYI - Luxembourg, according to statistics, has the highest per capita GDP and standard of living in the world.

My answer: We are already spending gobs and gobs of money. Hell, we are spending more on health care than countries that have a socialistic healthcare system.

Spending more money isn't going to work (i.e. moving to "universal healthcare"). At some point, you have to stop throwing money at the problem and find a different way of fixing it.

Interestingly enough, the same argument applies to education funding. There is an inverse relationship between test scores and the money spent on education by our gov't (same source as above). The spending has increased while test scores have decreased. Once again, it leads me to believe there is another problem. My opinion is the bureacracy of the school systems is too large and a major waste of money.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

SinisterMotives

First of all, I'd be all for private health care management if they could figure out a way to provide equitable health care at costs that are merely ridiculous instead of insanely exorbitant. Unfortunately, the health care industry has shown that they're either unable or unwilling to do so.

Second, it's absurd to equate medical care with other consumer services, which is basically what the HMOs are all about. Take the automobile industry, for example. They make Cadillacs for rich folks and Geo Metros for poor folks. Everyone can presumably buy a car within their budget. Unfortunately, human physiology doesn't fall into different "price points". If a poor person has appendicitis, he needs the same operation as a rich person with the same problem. There is no "Geo Metro" equivalent for the "Cadillac" surgery.

As for whether it's the government's business to subsidize medical care, one may very well question why the government keeps making the roads wider to accommodate more single-passenger vehicles. Driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right. Read your state driver's manual if you don't believe me. Why does the government subsidize your driving habits then? Because it's for the collective good. As far as we know, no individual can afford to build his own road to work, to the supermarket, etc.

The question becomes: why are people less deserving of decent health care in a country that can well afford it than they are of the privilege of hopping in their cars and taking a joyride whenever they get the urge? Why is a healthy population of less value than the "freedom of the open road" in promoting the general welfare - the stated objective of the U.S. Constitution?

hammer4all

Anyone else find it more than a little ironic that congress members don't mind socialized healthcare for themselves (or the military) with free access to the top-quality physicians at Walter Reed Medical Center, but that kind of socialized universal healthcare isn't good enough for the rest of us?

SinisterMotives

It's the way of all elitist, "I got mine, you get yours" types.

highthief

To the first point, obviously government IS involved in managing a big ass part of every nation. The government currently is involved in "people's needs" by providing, aside from medical care, education, protection in form of the military and police services, roadways, and so on. Should the government also divest itself of these responsibilities and would private armies and police forces work better?

Yes, there are demographic differences between the US and Canada, as there are between all countries. As was noted earlier, all countries have their internal challenges that may affect life expectancy. What - specifically - do you feel are greater challenges to the NATIONAL life expectancy than a lack of proper medical care?

hammer4all

A relatively recent Los Angeles Times article:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0223-01.htm

highthief

Life expectancy at various ages is a good barometer - one can argue that the predeliction for young American blacks in DC to shoot one another is extremely high when those men are in their teens to 30s and consequently lowers life expectancy.

It would be most interesting and revealing to see how life expectancy tables compare between say a 60 year old American and a 60 year old Canadian or Japanese - when death by murder or drug abuse is much less likely and death from disease is more likely, and so obviously the degree of medical care will play a bigger factor.

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brianna

we have a health care crisis in this country -- if you haven't seen it consider yourself lucky and/or wealthy. my mother is the nursing supervisor at a rural hospital and my ex boyfriend is a doctor in the UCSF system -- both have had to deal with telling patients that their medical bills will most likely ruin their credit for the rest of their lives. the most disturbing incident involved a college kid who had the unfortunate luck of getting bit by a rattle snake while 2 hours from a hospital -- he needed 4 doses of anti-venom and a good week in the hospital and while his college did provide nominal health insurance it only applied when the accident took place within the state he lived in (oregon), since he was in california they would not pay ANY of his $120,000 hospital bill. my mother sat down with his family and tried to figure out a way to spread the costs out of the credit cards of various family members so that he wouldn't have to bare the entire debt on his own. to say that this 18 year old kid deserves to deal with such stress is heartless, to imply that he should not have been given any health care at all (and thus left to die) barbarian.

there are certain thing in life that should be considered inaliable right (life, liberty, etc) and i see no reason why a right to health care without having to forfeit your future should not be one of them.

SinisterMotives

You, madam, are a real human being.

roachboy

i would agree with brianna.
the implications of american health care is in fact that the lives of the children of the wealthy/well-employed are worth more than the lives of the children of the poor/underemployed.

the present system is barbaric.
that there are people who would argue for it out of fear of the possibility of a more equitable health care system is beyond my comprehension.

the statistics above are but one index of the effects of the radical disparities of economic class in the states.
these disparities cannot be wished away by the right, cannot be attributed to individual choices, cannot be made into an index of morality.

these are systemic problems.
the right has nothing to say about them.

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SinisterMotives

I bet if they underwent surgery without local anesthesia one good time, they'd change their minds awful quick. It's easy to pay lip service to the suffering of the poor if one has never had to experience it oneself. The only people who have argued for the status quo thus far have adequate health insurance.

highthief

120K!?!??! For a week in hospital, transport and some drugs? Mayeb a little dialysis?

That is incomprehensible to me how such a bill can be run up in such a short period of time. I'd probably take my chances with the snake venom if I knew that in advance.

highthief

It does sometimes seem people do argue against broader and more accessible healthcare on the grounds of they themselves would begrudge a bit of equality in that area. I know for most that is not the case, but it comes across that way at times.

SinisterMotives

I never caught where you're from, but if you've never been to America, then you probably don't realize just how self-serving most of us are here. Most Americans never see through it themselves. This country was basically a vast frontier that was developed by rugged individualists who fended for themselves for the most part. Now that the U.S. is more highly developed and populated, that individualism has devolved into a sort of perverse narcissistic hedonism. We still delude ourselves into thinking that each man is an island unto himself, when in fact that sort of "wild west" contempt for civilization has long been outmoded.

brianna

anti venom is *Really* expensive. so is staying in the hospital for a week but i think it was the anti-venom that did him in.

hammer4all

Antivenin is extremely expensive. I watched a TV program on snake bites recently (I think it was on the Discovery Channel or something) and they said it can cost like 10-20k per vial and it usually takes 4-5 vials to stop the venom.

highthief

Canada - and I spent a lot of time in the US, especially New England.

highthief

10-20K a vial seems rather inflated. This article suggests it is more like a thousand. Why it should cost 10-20K - I cannot see the justification for that...

http://www.firefighting.com/articles...asp?namID=3661

Another site gave a figure of $600 for rattlesnake anti-venom.

hammer4all

Well, I'm telling you that's what I heard. I remember it because it shocked me to hear them say antivenin cost so much. Maybe there are different types of antivenin for different snakes. I dunno.

highthief

Perhaps it costs hospitals 500-1000 per vial to acquire, then they charge you 10-20 times as much. That would not surprise me.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

wonderwench

Here is the fallacy in your equating health care with the "inalienable rights" - someone else must pay for it.

One of these things is not like the other:

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, Health Care

The first three are negative rights - easily summed up in the phrase "the right to be left alone". Health Care is an example of a "positive" right - which is another term for a need to be satisfied by someone else's labor. The inherent problem with demanding the fulfillment of a "positive" right is that it requires an infringement of another individuals's right to be left alone.

brianna

i think you're belief that the other rights are free is false. taxes pay for millions of things so that citizens can pursue their rights to life, liberty and happiness, the most egregious example is liberty; we spend billions of dollars a year on a state military that helps to ensure this right. i see no reason why health care needs to be added to the list, frankly providing health care is the only way to ensure the rights to life and happiness which are already promised.