What's killing America? U.S. ranks 28th in life expectancy (lower than Chile and Greece) while it pays the MOST for health care
Maybe, we are being more honest in our reporting of deaths?
We need to ration it better through ObamaCare. That will solve the problem.
We report deaths of viable babies that don’t survive.
What’s killing America?
Obama
i don’t see people streaming into chile
I would say the widespread use of dangerous drugs probably ranks near the top.
I can't wait for costs to be cut by two thirds and our life expectancy to be at the very top after Obama care is enacted.
I crack myself up...
As long as a significant number of Americans continue to sit on their butts and eat until they develop measurable gravitational fields, this will be true. At 65, my last years health care cost was zero for medication and $150 for a quack doctor to look at me and tell me to go away. My future plan is to eat a little of what I like, drink a little whiskey, keep working, and die when I die. The problem isn’t with the system, it’s with the patients. And yes, some people catch bad breaks. Most however, sicken themselves.
Fully reporting infant mortality accounts for a lot of it. If you’re sick or injured, you don’t give a freep about overall life expectancy, if you’re smart. You care about survival rates and longevity for your ailment or injury.
Whose premature babies live? Ours. Whose cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and AIDS patients live? Ours. Whose accident/shooting victims live? Ours.
Last month I went to visit a an elderly member of my parish..73 years old, who was having a knee replaced. Some family members were already there, so I waited outside, and was talking to the nurse at the duty station. She told me that there wer 85 beds in that orth wing..they were 97% full, all were over 65, and the vast majority were in for hip and/or knee replacements. It's like gettign a new lease on life for these seniors..and there is nowhere else that's being done..
So our life expectancy is about 78 years and is supposedly “well below” the average of the top country’s 79 years. A one year difference is “well below?” Are you freakin’ kidding me? With the size and eating habits of many Americans, I’m amazed we live an average of 78 years. Actually, I would bet if we took out Black Americans (life expectancy about 70 years), we’d top the lists..
It is LIFESTYLE!
NOT substandard healthcare!
Poor diet, lack of exercise, drug & alcohol abuse....
One of the many problems with our healthcare system is the government is deeply involved in all aspects of it....which drives up cost
Anybody on medicaid runs to the hospital or clinic with a running nose or less because it's not on their nickel....
Government refuses to reform tort laws so doctors do multiple expensive tests to simply CVA on insurance costs or lawsuits
Get government out of the picture and costs will be driven down...
If you think back, healthcare costs were rising with inflation. But they didn’t really take off until clinton got into office. He didn’t manage to push hillarycare through, but they did manage to regulate and force a lot of extra expenses into the system.
For one thing, it was cheaper just to pay your doctor than it is to have forced insurance. Back then, it was just between you and your doctor. Now, it’s between you, your doctor, the insurance company, the lawyers, and the government regulators, and all those guys need to get paid. Doctors are getting paid less, and insurers more.
I couldn’t help noticing all those shiny new insurance buildings going up all over the place in the clinton years. Who was paying for that, and for all the expensive workers sitting in those offices?
That’s basically why healthcare has become unaffordable. As to the death rates, I suspect that someone is cooking the books.
In many cases the life expectancy discrepancy can be attributed entirely to voluntary choices.
This has been reported on ad nauseum, and the true answer always gets comes back out.
Big Farm and Big Pharma. Telling us what to eat and what to “cure” us when when we get sick from what we eat.
My general point is that statistical comparisons like this are nearly pointless because they don't take into account the meaningful differences from one country to another. Some countries, for example, have very low health care expenses because they simply don't pay for non-critical medical prodecures (and by this I mean these procedures help address a medical condition but don't necessarily extend someone's life) that we consider "routine" here in the U.S. Another Freeper made an excellent point about joint replacements, for example.
We also do a lot of medical procedures in this country that have nothing to do with treating a medical condition (most cosmetic surgery, for example).
And I'd point out that life expectancy figures -- even if they are accurate -- do not necessarily correlate directly to a country's quality of medical care. High mortality rates among young people due to accidents and crime, for example, will diminish overall life expectancy even in a country where it is common for people to live well into their 80s in a state of pretty good health. A young person who dies under these circumstances could very well end up in a morgue without ever setting foot in a hospital or doctor's office after the age of 5. So this type of unfortunate situation has almost no bearing on measuring the quality of medical care they received.