If you want a long healthy life

[cerveloguy]

…better move to Andorra.

U.S. life span shorter
August 11, 2007 05:08:02 PM PST
Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.
For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
“Something’s wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore.
The shortest life expectancies were clustered in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that has been hit hard by an epidemic of HIV and AIDS, as well as famine and civil strife. Swaziland has the shortest, at 34.1 years, followed by Zambia, Angola, Liberia and Zimbabwe.
Researchers said several factors have contributed to the United States falling behind other industrialized nations. A major one is that 45 million Americans lack health insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care, they say.
But “it’s not as simple as saying we don’t have national health insurance,” said Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal. “It’s not that easy.”
Among the other factors:
• Adults in the United States have one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Nearly a third of U.S. adults 20 years and older are obese, while about two-thirds are overweight, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
“The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy,” said Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta. “We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times.”
• Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans.
Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco.
• A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday, compared with other industrialized nations.
Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
“It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children,” said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. “We haven’t done anything to eliminate those disparities.”
Another reason for the U.S. drop in the ranking is that the Census Bureau now tracks life expectancy for a lot more countries � 222 in 2004 � than it did in the 1980s. However, that does not explain why so many countries entered the rankings with longer life expectancies than the United States.
Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to health insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S. won’t move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance.
Policymakers also should focus on ways to reduce cancer, heart disease and lung disease, said Murray. He advocates stepped-up efforts to reduce tobacco use, control blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and regulate blood sugar.
“Even if we focused only on those four things, we would go along way toward improving health care in the United States,” Murray said. “The starting point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health care system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does.”

[Andrewmc]

The USA has SOME of the best health care provision available but ONLY if you can access it.

The decision is quite simply would you rather have some care for all or a some care for some. Both cost money, in one some people end up subsidising some others. The interesting aspect is attempting to quantify the cost of a lack of health care provision on the economy and what a company saves by failing to provide health insurance to employees.

Whats the cost of a trained employee taking time off due to illness. Their training, their replacements training and so on and so forth.

The fact is that the care that IS available varies enormously and the best providers HAVE issues (with quality) and acknowledge this so whats that say for a mediocre hospital player in a one horse town. They probably have higher standardised mortality rates, higher avoidable death rates, higher MRSA and CDiff rates and so on and so forth.

Choice in health care is a myth if you live outside an urban area. If you want the best and most current practice you should live in a large metropolitan area, other than that the variation in what is available will be substantially greater than that in a metropolitan area which means unless you can affort to travel your choice is limited and you are screwed.

[cerveloguy]

“would you rather have some care for all or a some care for some”

The US is the only developed country not providing universal health care for all it’s citizens, and the system in place is the most expensive to administer in the world, but that’s only part of the reason for the 42nd place ranking. The other problem is obesity and the health related problems of the condition. When 2/3 of the population is over weight you have situation that is bound to shorten life expectancy.

To my mind, the statistics speak for themselves.

[douglashilbert]

“The US is the only developed country not providing universal health care for all it’s citizens”

– Not sure if you were making a statement or advising for government run health care. My problem with that is our government is so big it can’t run anything correctly. I’ve heard nothing but poor things about Canada’s system anecdotally and they have 1/10th the population. Do you want the same people who run the DMV, welfare, HUD, immigration, etc… running your medical system? I know I wouldn’t use it and would pay cash somewhere else for care. If you want to know how our healthcare would be look at the VA, the government already runs that, and from all reports, horribly.

I do agree our current system is horrible too. Not sure what the situation is. At some point we have to penalize people who have risky lifestyles, including obesity. The healty population cannot afford to give medical welfare to every dope who won’t take care of themselves. Lack of personal responsibility is destroying all of our systems. Moral hazard theory - if you know someone will cover your ass or take care of you, you feel you can take more risks or act stupid. That person now is the US government in most sectors. We cannot afford to save everyone or cover their ass. We’re not everyone’s daddy. Not sure why we try to do this. Life’s not fair, some people deserve to suffer for their poor choices. (I don’t have a problem subsidizing the poor/children for basic care, I’m not totally heartless)

From wikipedia on “Moral Hazard”:
“Medical insurance -
In medical insurance, moral hazard implies that it is possible that an individual would take unnecessary risks or not take steps to ensure their continued health, as the individual would not bear the full cost of subsequent medical care. This argument is controversial, however, as the individual may not bear the full monetary cost of necessary medical care, but clearly bears a substantial non-monetary personal cost. This application of the theory of moral hazard has been used as an argument against universal health insurance due to the potentially higher costs to all insured parties. Opponents of this argument suggest there is insufficient evidence to suggest that individuals would risk their health due to better insurance, and that the potential magnitude of the increased costs is small compared to the costs of other insurance market imperfections, particularly adverse selection.”

I think while they say it’s controversial, people still do things like smoke, drink excessively, abuse narcotics, overeat, eat lead paint chips, etc… when there is a ton of information available and in their face daily about these things being harmful to their health. Millions seem to ignore the “non-monetary personal cost” quite easily.