Posted on 05/10/2017 4:51:49 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Life expectancy can vary widely in the United States, depending on where you live. That's the finding of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study also shows something else that wasn't necessarily intended by the authors — namely, that all those claims about how the U.S. spends more money on health care and gets worse outcomes than any other industrialized nation are nonsense.
Overall, the life expectancy at birth in the U.S. is 79.1 years (76.7 for men and 81.5 years for women), the JAMA study says.
That's the number that countless reports about the quality of U.S. health care rely on. They all note that while the U.S. spends a far greater share of its GDP on health care, it has worse health outcomes, one measure of which always cited is longevity. [snip]
Statements like this are almost always used in support of government-run health care. All those other countries, after all, have single-payer systems, or something akin to it. Only the U.S. relies largely on the private sector to deliver health care and fails to provide universal health insurance. Look at the debate over ObamaCare and you see this claim made constantly.
But as the JAMA findings make clear, comparing overall longevity numbers in the U.S. with those of other countries is highly misleading. And blaming the difference on health care is even worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
A fine evaluation. The hard truth is hard to come by these days, since politics is a disease that infects all facets of our lives, and deaths in this case.
For later
Something like 90% of Canadians live within 50 miles of the USA border. For serious problems they come to the USA. I know nurses in Buffalo and Niagara Falls who see them all the time (we are very close to Canada)
I have a friend in Portugal who told me just this week how she was lucky she could get an MRI there FOR FREE! ... her appointment is in OCTOBER (5 months from now)
I told her I could get her (and her dog and her goldfish) an MRI this afternoon if she wanted one here (and it was already noon on Sunday)
I have a co-worker whose parents escaped Cuba. Sure you can get everything free there, but there is nothing available to get.
Why the hell are liberals THIS STUPID...?
p4l
The heck with the wage gap, let’s talk about the longevity gap!
One other thing to look at is how infant mortality is calculated. The U.S. makes many heroic efforts to save premature and otherwise ill babies. If they take even one breath and then don’t survive they are counted as a live birth with a zero lifespan bringing down the average. Many countries will count those as the same as a stillbirth and not include them in mortality statistics which increases their average.
bfl and bookmarked
Make no mistake.. this isn’t their money and their health they are gaming with. They are simply applying a lil Lenin antifa and all the Lenin principles. It’s not their fault people don’t know history.. winks wink. Use idiots.
LOL!! THAT is a great line!
Abject garbage.
Any honest discussion on healthcare must address the cause of health decline in this country. Healthcare in the US is reactionary and getting worse. Mothers are now birthing diseased babies at an ever-increasing rate and the only reason the infant-mortality numbers went down was due to cessation of medically-induced labor, not improvements in prenatal care. Simply put, doctors don’t know what the hell they’re doing and some are abandoning the popular model. I engage with those between the ages of 70 & 90 on a daily basis; if quality of that “longevity” is not also taken into account then the numbers matter little.
Propaganda from a medical community beating its chest to shore up medical stocks. Not impressed.
And yes they f**ked up passing that health bill; shoulda left it around the neck of the dems, as anything they do matters little, but we have to keep pitting one side against the other, now don’t we?
Life expectancy in Chicago is 12 years old.
Third Leading cause of death in USA, that is over 600 per day
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
Yes abject garbage. No one factors in medical induced deaths from horrible side effect riddled FDA approved drugs. Or medical malpractice. Just pitched the 11th Peripheral Neuropathy drug for horrid side effects that was shutting my kidney’s down.
If you are a trained tech, you should be able to gauge my vein size by looking at them 22 gauge, which is child size. And not blow 5 with a to large IV Cath pick in less than 10 mins. Or puncture the elbow veins with the tiniest needle they use for Cardio test twice, and have to call a RN to do your job, she hits on the first stick.
Nor do you know what Senior Dehydration looks like after you’ve forced them to go 15-or more hrs with no fluids for 1 of your test. You don’t even offer them a glass of water after and make sure they are not disorientated and dizzy.
Good point about quality of life.
Running joke in our family is 68. The men on my fathers side back up the line, don’t live much passed 68.
My grandfather - 67, my dad - 64; His older brother lived until 72 but I wouldn’t give a warm bucket of spit for the last 5 years of his life.
My dad’s younger brother is still kicking pretty good at 76, so there’s hope for some of us, I hope, as I am nearing the end of my family shelf life.
Exactly right.
In addition to your excellent point, US stats also include all the illegals who have come here with exotic diseases that they pass around. Or non-exotic diseases. There is a huge outbreak of measles among Somalis in the US who refused to get vaccinated.
I’m not entirely sure, but it may also include those who come here for treatment of end stage diseases.
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