Life expectancy is perhaps the most important measure of health. It is readily comparable across countries and asks the most fundamental question concerning health: how long can the typical person expect to live?
Life expectancy increases due to healthcare improvements like the introduction of vaccines, the development of drug cocktails to treat AIDS or positive behavior changes like the reduction in smoking or drinking rates. During the 20th century, the average lifespan in the United States increased by more than 30 years as the rates of infectious diseases declined.
Which OECD countries have the longest life expectancies? Japan's life expectancy is nearly 83 years with European countries like Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Israel and Australia only a year or two behind. Japan's relative advantage is related to not only genetics but also its universal health care system, generally better diet and low levels of inequality.
What about the United States? Well, that is unfortunately a very different story. The United States has a life expectancy of around 78 years, comparable to Cuba and near the bottom of the OECD countries. The few OECD countries that lag behind the United States (Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, Slovak Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Turkey) all have vastly lower measures of wealth. In 2000, the World Health Organization rated the United States' health system as 37th in the world, below middle income countries such as Columbia, Costa Rica, and Chile.
Life expectancy in the United States isn't uniform but rather there is a huge amount of variability within the country. For example, African-American urban men live about 20 years less than Asian-American women. Geographically, residents in diverse states such as Hawaii, Minnesota, California and New York have average life expectancies more than five years longer than people in Mississippi, West Virginia and Alabama where the influence of racial and economic disparities are related to this state-to-state difference.
It is remarkable that American's pay 2-5 times more for healthcare than most OECD countries while having one of the shortest life expectancies. If you think of health expenditures as an investment with longevity being the return on this investment, then we can say that the United States receives a much lower return on its investment than other wealthy countries.
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AxelDC said on 31 Tuesday 2011 am31 11:46 am: Yet another problem with Socialism: it makes you live to a very old age. |
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Note: The data source for life expectancy was Society at a Glance 2011 - OECD Social Indicators. Other sources may have slightly different estimates.
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WE'RE #1
OOPS . . . MAYBE NOT IN HEALTH CARE . . . BUT WE'RE STILL #1 IN COST . . .
GUESS THAT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING SINCE BEING #1 IS SOOOOO IMPORTANT TO US RED BLOODED AMERICANS!
Here's a good article you mind find interesting. Among other things, it shows the results of a 5 year study involving cancer survival rates from 2 million patients from 31 countries. It shows that America is the clear leader in cancer care. We have the highest survival rates in 13 of 16 cancers studied.
A lot of it has to do with preventative screens. See, when you don't actually pay for things yourself, generally you don't get as much as when you pay for it. The British for example wont' pay for you to get screened for colon cancer until you're 75. In the US, it is recommended you get screened starting at 50. That's one of the reasons if you're a man and get cancer, if you live in the UK, your chances of surviving past 5 years are 45%, however if you're an American it's 66%.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj_american_cancer_care_beats_the_rest.htm
Cancer mortality rates are a function of the cancer incidence rate and the survival rate. Ultimately, we care about the cancer mortality rates where the incidence rates are a function of genetics, lifestyle choices, environmental factors, etc.
The age-adjusted mortality rates for the leading cancers such as lung cancer, prostate cancer, and breast cancer in the US are generally average compared to other wealthy countries. The fact that the age-adjusted mortality rates are similar to other wealthy countries in spite of earlier detection (and higher survival rates) suggests that either the incidence rate of the cancers is much higher in the US or that the survival rate statistic isn't reflecting differences in treatment efficacy but rather just detection timing.
Concerns that the early screenings aren't necessarily leading to longer survival have prompted some US public health task forces to recommend reduced screening frequencies but the economics of screenings (testing is a high margin activity) may make them still much more prevalent in the US than other countries.
Why is there no debate over universal health care ? Maybe because the health care companies are the real winners at the expense of ordinary, middle class people.
And one of the biggest health care gangsters was elected governor of Florida ! What is going on in America ?
Breathe...
Relax...
Go fishing....
Ever been to Scandinavia or France. In these "socialist" countries people live on a much higher standard of living than does the average American. They're very intelligent and don't let themselves be played by powerful interests like a bunch of suckers.
Eat grass. Where's your pride?
Money = speech
All the money = all the speech
The mainstream media is big money's public relations dept - including AOL. John D. Rockefeller realized public relations (the press) was critical and was the first person to take steps toward controlling the media after Americans discovered he had union workers murdered over a century ago. Thank God we still have groups still willing to speak the truth.
I know Dylan Ratigan is part of MSNBC, but I admire what he's doing. Unfortunately many Americans don't grasp economics or his general message:
1) The subversive effect of big money on America.
2) The danger that big money's partnership with the Communist Party poses around the world.
The devil is in the details.
The good news is that I live in Australia.
I expect to live a long and happy life.