Posted on 01/25/2011 1:22:37 PM PST by lbryce
Despite getting high marks for treating cancer and heart disease, the United States is failing the ultimate test of its health care system, a new study finds, trailing other developed countries in life expectancy gains.
Although life expectancy has edged upward for U.S. men and women in recent decades, several other developed countries have surged ahead in both overall life expectancy and in the expected years of life for people who have reached age 50, according to the 194-page report prepared by a panel of the National Research Council of the National Academies.
When comparing health data from the United States against other high-income nations, the researchers did find some positive signs. The United States ranks very high in cancer screening and survival and in heart attack survival. But this care is expensive: U.S. health care expenditures are roughly double the same costs in the other developed countries. access
Despite high health care spending, the overall mental and physical wellness of Americans “is relatively poor,” says study coauthor Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Americans are among the most sedentary people, vying with Poland for the dubious status of topping that category, followed by Italy, England and Spain.
Nearly all countries show a decline in smoking, with Denmark the exception. Americans have been among the heaviest smokers in the past, but Japan holds that distinction now. Even so, the damage of past smoking lingers. Deaths attributable to smoking in past decades continue to substantially hurt life expectancy in the United States, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark and Canada. The effects in Japan are just starting to emerge in men.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
This proves it! We need government to take over our healthcare so we can all live longer! /sarcasm
Americans have more cars per capita than other countries. We travel by car more, leading to more accident related deaths.
Also, certain communities have a higher rate of violent death - you know, like Amish communities. That also pushed the life expectancy rate down.
Finally, are infants counted in that life expectancy number? In European countries, premature births are not counted as viable lives, so they are not counted towards infant mortality. Not so in the U.S. How does this factor (if at all) into life expectancy?
Life expectancy is a bit of a bogus number when evaluating things like health care. Look more closely at things like cancer survival rates.
And for government, exactly how is this bad news? If a human kill switch could be installed to be remotely switched off the moment you draw down on the treasury instead of pay into it, we’d be wired up by month’s end.
Once again science paves the way (as left-wing, liberal hack job.)
Anyone who has ever talked to a liberal about national healthcare knows we have “too many” MRI’s and other advanced machines, we allow people to live “too long” when they are old, we “waste” money on getting people operations who don’t “deserve” them.
Now you tell me how their rationing of healthcare will make Americans live longer, because that is not the idea at all.
GIGO... so many things can screw up the findings.
With politicized science..none of their results are reliable..You can massage data to make it say what you want it to say.
Just like the infant mortality rates...The US is always going to fare worse when we count every infant that draws a breath and other nations get to start counting after the first day of life. All you have to do to boost your infant mortality stats is let preemies die.
Are these adjusted for mva...how about gang related deaths.
Throwing a bunch of teen’s and 20’s into the data can really screw up the stats.
You're likely correct in your analysis. The outfit behind "Science News" is Society for Science & the Public, a Washington-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
I tend to discount the credibility of most entities with public in the name. Although not in all cases, that word is typically a hint that a socialist outlook is lurking somewhere beneath the surface:
“this report deserves consideration and analysis, one that does not augur well for the state of the nation’s health.”
You do not provide any evidence to support your assertion. I just read the summary with the graphs. The summary reads like a political diatribe. The health care system probably has little to do with the trend. The health care system scores well on the measures of cancer screening and survivability. The health care system cannot compensate for poor diets, lack of exercise, risky sexual practices, excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, and other individual behaviors.
The usage or non usage of government health care will not change individual behaviors except through heavy handed coercion. We could adopt laws for the same heavy handed coercion without government controlled health care. The left wants control and health care is a major target. This study is no justification of government controlled health care. Rationing and price controls will decrease the supply and quality of health care.
“Finally, are infants counted in that life expectancy number? In European countries, premature births are not counted as viable lives, so they are not counted towards infant mortality. Not so in the U.S. How does this factor (if at all) into life expectancy?”
Source?
The charts basically say that in 2006, men lived 29 more years, once they reach 50. Women lived 33 more years, once they reach 50.
This was on average, and purportedly accounts for all types of mortality.
“Finally, are infants counted in that life expectancy number? In European countries, premature births are not counted as viable lives, so they are not counted towards infant mortality. Not so in the U.S. How does this factor (if at all) into life expectancy?”
Source?
Life expectancy is not solely a function of health care. Not even remotely so. You would think a guy writing in a science magazine would know that and perhaps he does.
One word.... STRESS
Here’s one, but google is your friend:
http://biggovhealth.org/resource/myths-facts/infant-mortality-and-premature-birth/
Lots of info on this on the web. Find out how they /sometimes/ don’t count preemies in the UK until they are at a facility certified to care for preemies. If it shows up dead to that facility, it wasn’t a live birth even if it was born alive at another hospital.
This report does not deserve the consideration it is obviously demanding. To compare the American population to developed nations dismisses the immigration effects. The U.S. population is not homogeneous. The immigrants would have health characteristics more akin to the country of origin than to the U.S. The study of this health effect is perhaps one of the few times when separating the population by ethnic and cultural characteristics might be justified. More so if the immigrant arrived in the U.S. as an adult.
We gingers demand scientific recognition.
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