Posted on 09/05/2009 1:00:35 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
We're getting a lot of sophistry connecting health care to life spans.
The U.S. spends much more on health care services as a percentage of GDP than other developed countries, and yet in life expectancy it lags most of these others. A specious connection built around these two facts has become a staple of discussions about health care, even though health care is only one of many determinants of life expectancy.
Life expectancy measures the average number of years remaining at a given age. It changes over time. The sum of your age and your expected remaining years tends to rise after the first year of life and after puberty, and if you get to 65 the prospects of a longer life are higher still. U.S. life expectancy at 65 (17.1 more years for males and 20 for females) is higher than in the U.K. and Germany. The more important point, however, is that life expectancy reflects not only health care but also diet and lifestyle. A raw match of life expectancy against health care spending is naive.
Take road fatalities: The U.S. holds the unenviable record of one of the highest rates in the developed world. Its road mortality rate is 15 per 100,000 people compared with 6.6 in Japan, partly because we drive more. Would universal health care shorten commutes or stop speeding? Would driver-distracting cell phones be shelved and more seat belts worn if there were universal health insurance? Now to the homicide rate, ten times as high in the U.S. as in the U.K. Will insurance cards replace guns? Can anyone credibly argue that health care reform will lower the homicide rate?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development reports that 32.2% of Americans are obese. The OECD average is 14.6%, with Japan at 3%, France
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The most importnat point they fail to mention is how will turning over our health care system to a bunch do gooder, meddling, social justice seeking liberals make our life expectancy longer?
Look what they've done with the poor.
Therefore they report less infant mortality and more still births. Some are not even counted if they die within 24 hours of birth. So by mere definition our statistics are skewed higher. Few Americans know the reasons why, though.
That comparative infant mortalities are used in the debate is disingenuous and intentionally misleading - disinformation is the clinical name.
Coarse simpletons like me just call it lying.
Let us not forget dear reader that nothing can be PROVED using statistics. Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
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