What can Italy teach the rest of the world about health? [ March 2019; by an liberal doctor advocate]

The Local ^ | March 2019 | Susan Levenstein

[daniel1212]

The Italian healthcare landscape includes crumbling hospitals, doctors trained on books rather than patients, and per capita spending one-third that of the United States. And Americans like to say their medical care is the best in the world, while Italians consider their National Health Service to be hopelessly dysfunctional. (In 2000 the World Health Organization ranked the Italian system second-best on the planet. But that stellar rating was based solely on equality of access on the one hand and health outcomes such as life expectancy on the other, ignoring any on-the-ground realities in between: waiting times, emergency room efficiency, surgical statistics, etc.)

But here’s the rub: Italians are much healthier than Americans in terms of everything from overall health longevity, infant mortality, obesity, cancer, diabetes, suicide, drug overdoses, homicides, and disability rates. On many of those measures, they beat out the UK as well. How on earth do they do it?

In Italy, a National Health System funded by taxes and based on the British model succeeds in providing everybody with doctors’ visits, medications, testing, and hospital care at virtually no out-of-pocket cost...

In Italy prices are kept down by hard bargaining – emergency room care is free for serious cases, those deworming pills cost one euro total, and even the classiest private hospital is unlikely to run more than €500 a night....

In the US, the world’s most unequal country, the average income of the top 10 percent is 19 times the average income in the bottom 10 percent; in Italy that ratio is only 11 to one, with the UK halfway in between.

And Italian labour laws ensure that new parents can take time off to bond with their children without losing their job, sick people don’t have to drag themselves back to work prematurely, and retirement doesn’t equal poverty.

The salubrious Italian lifestyle does the rest. Even educated, insured, well-off Americans are sicker than their peers in other rich nations. The local version of the Mediterranean diet may be the healthiest in the world – rich in fruits and vegetables, low in animal fats. And it’s low on snacks and desserts as well, so only 10 percent of Italians are obese, compared with 27 percent of Brits and a whopping 38 percent of Americans....

Susan Levenstein is an American doctor who has been practicing in Italy for the past 40 years.

[daniel1212]

"In Italy, a National Health System funded by taxes... In the US, the world’s most unequal country, the average income of the top 10 percent is 19 times the average income in the bottom 10 percent; in Italy that ratio is only 11 to one, with the UK halfway in between."

How to reduce income inequality? Partly by hindering people from being rich:

Average yearly income in the US: (USD): $62,850. Cost of living index: 100.00

Average yearly income (USD): $33,560. Cost of living index: 90.5 [which means everyday expenses in that country are 10% less than they are in the United States, while income is about half as much]. (https://www.businessinsider.com/average-annual-income-around-the-world-2019-8#17-italy-9)

Standard Of Living By Country 2020

United States: 13; Italy: 37 (https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/standard-of-living-by-country/)

Highest marginal tax rate (individual rate) applied to the taxable income of individuals. Italy: 43%; U.S. 25% [2009] (https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Tax/Highest-marginal-tax-rate/Individual-rate)

Note also that as concerns Convid-19 cases, Al Jazeera reports:

At the end of December, an uncommon number of pneumonia cases arrived at the hospital of Codogno in northern Italy, the head of the emergency ward, Stefano Paglia, told the newspaper La Repubblica. Some of these patients could carry the coronavirus, but doctors treated them as typical winter diseases.

Unfortunately, a decisive contribution to the spread of the infection was given by the health facility itself, due to the amount of medical staff and attendees going through the compound daily. "The hospital acted as a multiplier," Walter Ricciardi, executive board member of the World Health Organization (WHO) and consultant for the Italian health ministry, told Al Jazeera.

Italy has tested more than 42,000 people so far, while other European Union countries performed significantly fewer controls. This scrupulous search inflated the tally, he said. (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-wreaks-havoc-italy-tests-limits-health-system-200307112350888.html)

[Bob434]

[[What can Italy teach the rest of the world about health?]]

That it’s healthier not to live there?

[daniel1212]

Edit title, ["by a liberal doctor advocate."] Sorry.

[Salvey]

doctors trained on books rather than patients

That may be true. A friend, who went to medical school in Italy, often mentioned that all of the training was out of the textbooks and that class attendance was not mandatory; indeed, in some courses, he and his fellow students merely appeared only for their oral final exams. The real learning came when they interned back here in the States.

[Kozy]

This is the Bernie Sander’s health care he wants for America.

[ifinnegan]

It can teach don’t let unfettered travel occur from China where there’s an epidemic to the fashion industry’s center because you want cheap Chinese manufacturing and labor in your “made in “Italy” factories.

[Berlin_Freeper]

French President Emmanuel Macron announced drastic measures, prohibiting gatherings across France, including family and other social gatherings.

The second round of the French elections will be also postponed, Macron said.

Earlier today, the city of Paris announced the closure of all public parks and gardens.

Macron said the country is “in a war” against the coronavirus outbreak.

“We are in a war… that’s why I decided that all reforms debated in parliament will be suspended,” he said. The government will draft a new legislation to face the crisis.

A new military hospital will be deployed to reduce hospital congestion, Macron said.

[Eleutheria5]

It’s where well-connected Cubans go./s

[Flaming Conservative]

I knew a doctor who couldn’t get into medical school in the states, so he went to Italy. Really nice guy, but very unsure of himself, and not the best doctor.

[NFHale]

“...What can Italy teach the rest of the world ...”

Not to hug Chinese folks right now...

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

An article wherein we learn the value of a high ranking in health by the World Health Organization.

By golly, that WHO sure knows what they are talking about.

And of course, so does Comrade Levinson!

[Simon Foxx]

“Susan Levenstein is an American doctor who has been practicing in Italy for the past 40 years.”

Hmmm ... is she “sheltering in place” or did she hop a refugee boat for America, I wonder?

[’Cause people of her generation don’t seem to be enjoying the beneficial aspects of Italian health care these days ...]

[SamAdams76]

But here’s the rub: Italians are much healthier than Americans

Probably because they have to be!

[reasonisfaith]

They can teach basic hygiene.

With 100,000 Chinese working in Italian factories and direct flights to Wuhan, higher rates of contagion are understandable.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/a_masterful_post_explains_why_coronavirus_in_china_and_america_may_differ.html

[Simon Foxx]

UPDATE: Our intrepid “Doctoressa” is now hiding in “The Bay Area” while still gently sniping at the US health care system and even at Dr Faucci; Here’s her blog entry from yesterday:

http://www.stethoscopeonrome.com/2020/03/notes-from-coronavirus-refugee.html

[daniel1212]

This is the Bernie Sander’s health care he wants for America.

Or Cuba. However, with all the universal health care programs, maybe a certain country could build state-of-the-art hospitals etc. and get some countries to subscribe to them for health care. It would not need a military since it would be in everyone's best interest to keep the hospital ward of the world in best shape. It could save everyone money since it could be a Walmart for health care. Think of what Cuba could have done via medical tourism, if not for selfish corrupt leaders, and thus if its health care lived up to its billing.

But dependence upon one country for anything is unwise, to put it mildly.

[miss marmelstein]

This is a year old. I wonder what she thinks today. And you can’t catch obesity by shaking hands with somebody.

[Old Yeller]

I told a lady at the food section of wal-mart today, that empty shelves are normal under socialism. Told her this is what Bernie and his morons want.

[daniel1212]

Earlier today, the city of Paris announced the closure of all public parks and gardens.

Which is just the opposite of what is best.

https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065 Coronavirus and the Sun: a Lesson from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic . Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.

`Open-Air’ Treatment in 1918 During the great pandemic, two of the worst places to be were military barracks and troop-ships. Overcrowding and bad ventilation put soldiers and sailors at high risk of catching influenza and the other infections that often followed it.[2,3] As with the current Covid-19 outbreak, most of the victims of so-called `Spanish flu’ did not die from influenza: they died of pneumonia and other complications.

[Darteaus94025]

What are the US statistics once the 6% of the population causing more than 50% of the murders is excluded?