Slashdot Mirror
US Life Expectancy May Have Peaked
Hugh Pickens writes "Live Science reports that although life expectancy in the United States has risen to an all-time high of 77.9 years in 2007 up from 77.7 in 2006, gains in life expectancy may be pretty much over, as some groups — particularly people in rural locations are already stagnating or slipping in contrast to all other industrialized nations. Hardest hit are regions in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, in Appalachia and also the southern part of the Midwest reaching into Texas. The culprits — largely preventable with better diet and access to medical services — are diabetes, cancers and heart disease caused by smoking, high blood pressure and obesity. What the new analysis reveals is the reality of two Americas, one on par with most of Europe and parts of Asia, and another no different than a third-world nation with the United States placing 41st on the 2008 CIA World Factbook list, behind Bosnia but still edging out Albania. 'Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing through 1999 those who were already disadvantaged did not benefit from the gains in life expectancy experienced by the advantaged, and some became even worse off,' says a report published in PLoS Medicine by a team led by Harvard's Majid Ezzati, adding that 'study results are troubling because an oft-stated aim of the US health system is the improvement of the health of "all people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities.'"
[citation needed]
The "US health system" has a stated aim? I thought the aim was to maximize the profits of the insurance companies, which we know can only be done by denying health care to those at greater risk. Where, exactly, is this stated?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Just wait until government Death Panels start pulling the plug on Grandmas!
What?
You need to calm down before you give yourself a heart attack and drag the average down even more.
Or maybe not. Maybe only 37th.
Seriously, the way the insurance companies are sabotaging health care reform what we need is what I call the nuclear health care reform option. Maybe something like along the line of if reform doesn't pass:
1) All members of congress that blocked it must pay for their own health insurance out of their own pockets. No more public health care for them like most of them currently have through their Congressional pay and benefits package..
2) No more bonuses or stock options for the top tiers of insurance company execs as long as they deny insurance to people. And cap their pay at 100K per year and force them to pay for their health benefits out their own pocket. No health benefits as part of their compensation. They have to purchase their own plans.
If they pull the trigger and kill reform, then we should pull the trigger on them. Mutually Assured Destruction.
The only health care program that really works is the single payer option.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There is not really much wrong with your analysis, but you should be aware that it is not just people who think differently to you who are arguing from a political perspective. The real question (and it is a question that I can't answer satisfactorily to myself) is what happens to the children of these "nitwits"? The fact is that if a kid is brought up in a household where the adults are not able to look after themselves properly, are the kids more likely to grow up like the adults in their lives? That's the difficulty; you and I and lots of other people are brought up right, we get education as to what is healthy and what is not. But these kids (ie the children of the nitwits) don't get that opportunity. We can dismiss the parents for being nitwits (but remember they may also have been brought up in an unhealthy household) but can we so easily dismiss the children? I grew up in an old-fashioned liberal family. As I have grown older, my views have shifted and I take a slightly more conservative stance. But I cannot (and I hope I never will) dismiss the children of inadequate parents. Doing that is a step too far, in my opinion.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
I Want My Country Back! Death Panels! Death Panels! Death Panels!
*ahem*
Sorry, I've been watching too much tv...
Because it's going to come up, I want to mention that the biggest criticism of the US health care system is often that the US has lower life expectancies (thus trying to imply that the US health care system is not as good). This is a non-sequitur, if you really dig into the numbers, you will find that the main reason for lowered life expectancies is obesity. Here is a report. Check the graphs, only Greece rivals the US in plumpness.
Another common criticism is that the US has high infant mortality rates. This is likely because of premature babies, which aren't always counted in infant mortality rates in other countries. If you are planning on having a baby prematurely, the US is a good place to do it (but please don't plan on that).
There are a lot of problems with the US health care system, for example, it is hard to get insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, the cost of malpractice lawsuits (and other things) drives up costs, not everybody has insurance (although we end up paying for them anyway when they go to the emergency room: no one can be turned away without treatment, which is good), but shouldn't we try to solve the real problems that are in the system, instead of trying to rewrite the whole thing from scratch? There are relatively simple solutions to all these problems, and as any programmer knows, drastically changing the structure of your program is only going to introduce more problems.
Qxe4
Here is a comparison of life expectancies between the US and Europe.
For unadjusted life expectancy, the U.S. ranks #14 out of 16 countries, but for the adjusted standardized life expectancy, (adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries) the U.S. ranks #1.
gains in life expectancy may be pretty much over
And nobody will EVER need more than 640K of RAM.
Forget the fact that things like the internet and the Human Genome project have lead to a flood of medical research, the likes of which we've never seen, that is bound to produce results.
Sorry, but that's about the most ridiculous statement Slashdot has posted today.
But at least they die free.
And one of those stupid things, apparently, is to be too poor for health insurance..
And yes, at one point long ago, back probably before you were born, the United States used to pride itself on being the longest average lifespan in the world.
Finally, not everybody has the chance to "get an education" that you did. Not everybody was taught how to make "good lifestyle decisions". And even if they were- Americans over the past 40 years have been basically thrown out with the trash, including nerds.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The problem with the system in America is that it is designed to kick people when they are already down and then hold them there. People of all races and upbringings make mistakes. The American system is much more unforgiving to those who get caught making mistakes.
This, for example, and ridiculous bank overdraft fee policies among others.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Let me get this straight- in the US, our lowest classes are so well fed, with so many calories, that they become overweight. Because they are poor, they can't afford to lose weight.
Astounding. In many other countries, the poor starve to death.
We're so rich that even the poorest of our poor is suffering from over-abundance.
Every American should take a trip to a real 3rd world country at lease once in their lifetime. It would solve a lot of the entitlement issues we have.
So peripheral nervous system problems are OK; but central nervous system problems aren't.
Got it.
Sorry, hand in your liberal card. That was the party-line during the Bush years. Now that democrats are in power, it is Un-American to oppose health care reform (according to Nancy Pelosi, anyway), and if you do, then you are an evil-monger. That is according to Harry Reid.
It's as if the debate turned from trying to help poor people who are uninsured into some weird debate over I don't even know what. I seriously look at it and have no clue exactly what problem the Democrats are trying to solve. If anyone else has an idea, please say it. As for me, it's enough to make me vote Green Party.
Qxe4
Ya know, that was my biggest problems with Sicko. Moore is throwing out all the numbers about spending per capita, highest incidences of diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, etc., and blames it on the health care system but misses an obvious cause of all of this; obesity. Obesity causes more health problems, and as a result more spending. But of course, Moore wouldn't say that, because now instead of blaming the big, bad corporations and government, he would be asking his viewers to take some personal responsibility (which seems to be a progressive idea). Our country isn't sick because of health care, it's sick because we're fat.
The demand for healthier options in low-income areas is low because healthier options are too expensive for them to afford. The highly processed nutrition-poor food is FAR cheaper than the whole-grain fresh-vegetable healthy stuff.
Oh stop already with the politics
Yeah, you'll show em when you get political on the matter!
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner." Not that there aren't stupid people everywhere, but in America we still have the right to be wrong to a much greater extent than the nanny states in Europe.
So then are you saying that anyone who makes less money than you is inherently stupid in comparison to you?
Enough with this continual blather about the 'disadvantaged/poor/etc.' if you nitwits aren't going to deal with the actual problem.
Then kindly enlighten us 'nitwits', if you could.
To a very high degree of correlation, the 'poor' aren't living in poverty because of a lack of money.
Really? I don't know where you live, but I haven't heard of many people who are born into families with money and then end up broke.
They lack money because they have make poor lifestyle decisions that RESULT in a lack of money.
Which is ignoring the fact that some good decisions require money...
Things like failure to get an education
That is an excellent example of one. If you are in a poor family, you might not even have access to enough credit for student loans.
Though even more so, if we want to talk about health care (which most reasonable people would agree has at least some correlation to life expectancy), we should note the relationship between health care and education:
If you want a higher education:
Hence many people of lower income status are stuck in failure spirals. While providing them with health care may not be enough to get them out, it should at least be able to help some people, both from that classification and others.
Normally I wouldn't flame so hard but this entire article so reeks of slashkos politics I just couldn't hold back. Enough with the thinly disguised political stories outside the politics topic. Raise your hand if you actually think this was 'news for nerds' and not the DNC talking points being put into action.
Were you not reading yesterday when a conservative opinion got made the slashdot front page and lead to a conservative orgy in the discussion?
But don't worry, there may be some conservatives running around with left-over mod points who will mod your post up to +5 just as they did with several from other conservative authors yesterday.
I thought that was what the current argument was about, whether we were going to HAVE a single "US health system" or not
Perhaps you haven't been reading the news? Congress gave up on single payer health care at least a full month ago. It won't happen in this congressional session, period. Really the discussion now is just on how much the democrats will fold on any sort of change whatsoever; will they fold like a nice origami piece (perhaps a swan or a dove would be nice), or completely down like a lawn chair (to be stuffed away for the indefinite future in someone's garage)?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If someone in government could come up with a good mechanism to sort out the truly disadvantaged folks from the idiots who make dumbass decisions then i could get behind such a plan to pay for the people who are disadvantaged.
I've got this little theory that when my state decided to stop paying for good mental health institutions to lock up the mentally ill, the number of idiots who make dumbass decisions exploded.
Might I make a suggestion that somebody with "a problem with the area between the ears" is just as disabled as the guy missing an arm or a leg- and needs to be treated as such?
Funny thing is, if we did that- if we treated mental problems as vigorously as we treat physical problems- the number of single parents and idiots going home to drink and play XBox all night would probably go down drastically.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
To a very high degree of correlation, the 'poor' aren't living in poverty because of a lack of money. They lack money because they have make poor lifestyle decisions that RESULT in a lack of money.
Yes, like choosing parents who are alcoholics and drug addicts. Like choosing to be brought up in homes where there are no books. Like choosing to be brought up by people with no connections to wealth. Like choosing to live in the ghetto with horrible teachers imprisoned in decaying schools with no school supplies.
YOU, sir, are the problem. YOU, sir, are the reason these folks are "Stupid" (your word).
become a single parent
Or are brought up by one, or worse, in a foster home.
waste money on substance abuse
Or are brought up by meth addicts and crackheads. There but for the grace of God goes YOU, and you should thank whatever deity you do or don't believe in that you weren't brought up under these circimstances. If you had been, you would now be as dirt poor as they, and you'd likely be smoking crack instead of getting drunk on fine wine and your own ignorant vanity.
Free Martian Whores!
Ya know, i'd agree with a lot of your post, but to say the higher death rates are due to guns and lack of health care, that's idiotic. What about our obesity problem, which is causes by diet and lack of exercise (in most cases)? If people took care of their body then they wouldn't need to see the doctor's all the damn time. Would universal health care be nice, sure. But how about we take some personal responsibility and take care of ourselves (oh wait, progressives like placing the blame somewhere else). We don't do that, health care costs will keep increasing due to heart attack, diabetes, etc.
So when do we start rounding up the children of disadvantage parents and where will we put them so they can be raised to your high standards? Or do we rewrite the rules of the world to make sure those children are taken care of to your high caliber of lifestyle? What incentive do their parents have to give a damn if their kids will be cared for no matter what way they are raised? What incentives are given to parents who control their reproductive urges, but would normally be able to care for those children?
Have you ever seen Idiocracy?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I would fully reply to your trolling but I just don't have the energy to do it right now.
Life expectancy and infant mortality are used quite often to compare the relative health of different countries. I will quote from the article.
You are bitching that this post is right from the Democratic party talking points. I would ask you, how is it that we pay more for health care "per capita" (that means per person, since you trolls often fail to understand things) yet have a lower life expectancy that fucking CUBA?
It seems to me that when your health care system is that inefficient, the common sense thing to do is fix it. Yet the idea to try and fix an obviously broken health care system is denounced as DNC talking points.
There are poor and disadvantaged in every country, and people in every country in the world make bad decisions, like substance abuse or an XBOX?!? (I didn't know the XBOX played a major role in our health care woes, but whatever.)
The point is that every country has its disadvantaged, yet America's disadvantaged are further disadvantaged by bad health care. And everyone in America pays higher prices per person for health care. Even those perfect people like you who don't make bad decisions.
This IS news for nerds, and it is a valid science article about health. It is a serious problem, and trolling it won't make your Republican talking points any more true.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
I absolutely agree with you, and if the Democrats made as their goal, to "Help the homeless, help the poor, and rehabilitate the felons who never learned how to adjust to normal life in the first place and thus turned to crime" they would get a lot of support, and they'd definitely have mine. Instead they get into power, and what exactly is their goal? To insure everyone? Or is it to have the government take over the US health care system? Is their goal to help the poor, or is it to hurt the rich?
From my perspective, both republicans and democrats have a good side: the republicans want to empower the individual citizen and free him from the limitations of government, and the democrats want to help the poor and downtrodden. These are both noble goals.
But somehow in practice, these both seem to be forgotten. And it's the American public that gets hurt, by both sides.
Qxe4
Meaning, there are fewer grocers or supermarkets, and those stores that do exist stock more highly processed and unhealthy foods. Kinda tough to follow food guidelines when you can't even buy the elements of a healthy diet.
You know, I've been to some nice fancy grocers that specialize in all organic foods and such, and I've also been to a lot of run down supermarkets in bad neighborhoods. While the ratio of healthy to unhealthy food is certainly different in each case, I've NEVER seen a since store that didn't have healthy items. Pretty much everywhere has a produce section. Pretty much everywhere sells oatmeal, or cereal (health stuff like bran flakes - not Golden Crisps or the other mostly sugar cereals). Everywhere sells bread and cold cut meat.
Don't get me wrong I know it's harder to buy stuff like fresh fish or other seafood from a crappy rundown store, but again, that's market forces, and it's not the ONLY option if you're looking to eat healthier.
I actually grew up in one of those southern areas of the country, and it's quite obvious why it's having an effect. We deep fry everything down here. Most families are now deep frying their Thanksgiving turkey for heavens sake. When I grew up my grandmother fixed fried bread, and "butts meat" (which is more or less salted and fried fat). Despite my protestations, even when cooking a vegetable such as cabbage, or potatoes, or the like, my parents would throw a ham-hock or a slab of bacon or something in the pot with them. To them you simply COULDN'T cook vegetables without throwing fatty meat in the pot with them. Salt? Don't get me started. They eat salt on EVERYTHING, and not in small quantities. A small side salad will get a teaspoon or two of salt added. All fruit (when they eat fruit) had salt sprinkled on it before eating it. I've even got a few family members that will pour salt into a BEER before drinking it.
Result: I've had 2 uncles who had heart attacks in their 30's. On my mom's side neither grandparent lived past 55. My dad and every one of his 4 brothers has high blood pressure, and 2 have diabetes. It's not because there weren't healthy options in the stores, it's because they refuse(d) to buy and eat them.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It isn't JUST a health care availability issue. In the US, it is largely a cultural thing too, IMHO. According to the article, it notes it is lower in the southern US. I live in New Orleans, and I can attest to how it is different down here. Food, drink and fun are such an integral part of life down here. We like our food fried, butter is your friend, etc. And down in the south, drinking is much more a part of life. I never saw people get so hot under the collar when you mentioned you got a little bombed the other night and had to be careful driving home....until I started talking to people from up north. Down here, not as much a stigma.
Heck, we still have drive through daiquiri shops down here, and bars give you a 'to go' cup to take your drink with you when you leave.
We still smoke a lot too in the south...especially in NOLA.
But, back to the food. Southern food is really good. Many of us down here "live to eat" rather than "eat to live". Obesity is huge down here. I've been changing my life around, cutting back on booze, and trying to eat better and exercise regularly, and it is still hard. You know they old saying "never trust a skinny chef"? Well, damned near everyone down here I know is at the least a great home chef...we love to cook and eat. Families still get together over food quite a bit down here...nothing like a big crawfish boil to get a group of friends to hang out, be good company and have some drinks.
Sure, we do have a large number of poor in the area...but, medicaid covers most of the truly poor, poor, poor people. The people in the projects are covered...I've seen that in practice.
And also, especially in this area...(from here to Houston really IMHO), it is known as Cancer Alley . I know the wiki says it is anecdotal, but, I've seen studies and reports on the news from the past telling that it is prevelant down here due to the large number of oil/chemical processing down here. We also are exposed to everything in the MS river, that comes from the rest of the country.
But you know...I've come to the conclusion, that there is Quality of life, vs Quantity of life. You have to strike a balance. I'd hate to life a boring, bland life that was long, than one that was a bit shorter but full of adventure, food, fun and friends. So far...I've been blessed with the latter.
I personally love living in the south, and especially New Orleans. The people are so much nicer, and you still see people being polite to each other. Quality of life vs Quantity of life.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Take a step back and ask if you believe that (a) Americans are genetically more likely to die young; (b) if America as a location is inherently more deadly from pesticides or something. Neither one flies for me.
You are left with only the two variables I can think of. Health care and lifestyle. Where "lifestyle" includes everything from "your personal diet and exercise" to "national norms in diet and exercise", to "crime" Japanese just eat less fatty foods; Europeans walk more. MOST nations have less bullet-related deaths.
A conservative of my acquaintance tried to pass it all of as the latter. I believe his harsh words were "subtract the crack babies and they're the same as Canada".
So I did some research which I alas can't cite, but it took me about 30 minutes with Google, so I'll leave it as an exercise. Limited to over-65 white males with kidney disease, Canada STILL had better survival rates. 65+ females with heart disease? Canada in the lead, by statistically significant amounts. I remember it running like that across a whole matrix of hospital-admissions reasons. Liver, digestive tract, neurological...pick your organ, it's better to get sick in Canada. The stats even apply (with much less force to be sure) for the American insured, probably because American "insurance" has a way of disappearing on you when most needed.
So, sorry conservatives, health care explains a lot. (Canada, sorry to admit, has ALL your obesity problems, and then some in a few provinces.)
Not to forget the early-deaths, but not all of those are bullet-related. A factoid from the current debate includes this one: children born into uninsured households have a 50% higher chance of dying before the age of 1. It doesn't take a lot of baby deaths to really haul down an average.
So, in summary: American lifestyles could improve. So could American health care. Blame both.
It's not improbable at all, especially if he lived in a rural area. You can't be denied care for an emergency condition in an ER, but if you're in the ER, it's an emergency. If it's an emergency brought on by a chronic, untreated ailment, odds are you're in pretty bad shape and at a much greater risk of death than if you'd been treated for the underlying cause earlier on. As an example, if you show up in the ER with an undiagnosed malignant tumor in its last stages, you can still be saved, but your odds of being saved are extremely decreased by that point.
Furthermore, many rural areas in the U.S. do not have ready access to the most modern treatment options available. If I go fifteen miles north, as the crow flies, over the mountains I can see out my front window, those people have horrible treatment options. They are, basically, limited to less than half a dozen family doctors and a small free clinic that is not capable even of treating a broken bone. The quickest access they have to modern medicine in an emergency is a 40 minute helicopter flight to the nearest university medical center.
Our doctors, hospitals, specialists, and medicines are, by and large, incredible in the U.S. Our access to them, however, is pretty sorely lacking for a great number of people.
I don't know that he's telling the truth, and I don't know that his brother/friend (sorry, I forgot the relationship) did everything he could have, but, based on the rural area I grew up and still visit sometimes, I could absolutely see how it happens.
One thing I learned about the US that is hard to grasp for someone from say Holland is that there are areas in the US where you just can't buy produce. No vegetables.
Sure, you can DRIVE to another area, but that costs money.
Now I can't say exactly how true this is, but the simple fact is that even in "poor" areas in holland you can easily WALK (in less then 5 minutes) to a supermarket. Often one of a regular big chain like the AH. Which carries in all its stores, fresh vegetables.
They are still relatively expensive however.
If you do the math, then cheap fast food (the cheapest no-brand frozen pizza's) can be a LOT cheaper then even buying healthy base products and making your own. Good luck making a meal for 99 euro cents (cost of a frozen pizza). That of course assumes that such fresh products are even available, which in america they apparently aren't always.
You do get fat from eating to much, but you also get fat from eating the wrong things. Eat only frozen meals and your waist line will expand.
What europeans forget is the sheer scale of america. Everything is really bigger over there and this includes the slums. What might a be a bad neighbourhood in holland, consisting of maybe a few streets, is an entire suburb housing the same number of people as major town in holland.
Amsterdam, the dutch capitol has 750.000 people and is surrounded by farm land. It would fit several times into a large american city. In fact, the entire country is less then a 1/3rd of the state of new york.
Being poor can make it very hard to eat right especially if you are in a poor area where there just ain't a market for expensive healthy food.
Compare the prices, cheapo no-brand coke vs apple juice (and I am not even talking about the stuff with no sugars or artificial flavors added).
Frozen poptarts vs fresh bread (and wonder bread does not count as bread, it is a building material).
Remember, it is not the expensive fast foods that make people fat (well they do) but the stuff we are talking about here is the no-brand really crappy cheapo kind that is decades away from cutting down on articficial flavors and saturated fats.
When I buy fries, mine are made from real potatoes, cut on the spot, properly fried in expensive fluid fat that is replaced often. When you do it on a budget, you have cheapo thin fries (more fat) that are fried in your own cooker with months old solid fat.
Poor people eat unhealthy because healthy food is really expensive. live on a budget for your whole life to find out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When did they classify stupidity as an actual mental condition needing treatment?
When they mandated compulsory education?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
And one of those stupid things, apparently, is to be too poor for health insurance.... Finally, not everybody has the chance to "get an education" that you did. Not everybody was taught how to make "good lifestyle decisions".
Um, yes, he explicitly said he thinks poor people are only poor because they're stupid. Being too poor and ergo stupid to have health insurance is just a natural and just consequence. You think pointing out that not everyone was as lucky and privileged as he is going to sway his opinion, as if he didn't realize when he made that statement? No, he clearly thinks that if he hadn't had any advantage and started in the same situation as any poor person, he'd end up in the same place he is today because his natural awesomeness would just shine through. That lazy or dumb poor people exist is all the proof he needs, while the existence of lazy, dumb, but amazingly arrogant rich people isn't proof of anything at all.
The enemies of Democracy are
"And I'd love to see somebody pay 2200/yr for the cheapest medical insurance advertised on tv when they make about 16.5K before taxes."
Also, if you're in the situation the OP's friend was in you couldn't get health insurance for 10x that much money. American health insurance companies can refuse, outright, to cover you if you have a pre-existing condition. So, someone making minimum wage, and having a hard time even putting food on the table, has to choose between paying that $2200/yr in the off chance they develop a serious illness later in life, or they can go without it and be unable to receive adequate medical care should they end up getting seriously ill.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
The combined experience of the Nordic countries for half a century now should stand as proof that, even if everything in life is provided for you, the vast, vast majority of people still go out and work for a living.
That's great, if you're positioned to receive that best care or you subscribe to the lotto mentality that so many Americans do. Otherwise, it's beside the fucking point. Why should most people give a shit if a country has the best stuff, if they have no realistic chance of ever getting to use it?
"There were no charitable organizations or free clinics that he could have gone to? (doubtful)"
You have no personal experience with trying to get medical care while poor do you? Are you just talking out your ass? Charitable organizations willing to cover the medical bills for a major illness are few and far between in this country. Even if you happen to be in an area where there is one, you still have to get them to accept you as a case and, often, there is a huge waiting list. Don't agree? Then, put up or shut up. Name off a few such agencies yourself. If they're so common, then you must know some by name.
"I also doubt that not having health care was the primary concern for this death. What was the cause?"
Ah, the old "blame the victim" game. You know nothing about this person's situation but you are ready to assume the worst about them because it fits your personal agenda/beliefs. The truth is that not having health care leads to an inability to see a doctor for regular checkups or even minor treatment. In fact, as others have pointed out, you aren't guaranteed any health care at all unless you have an immediate emergency (and a terminal condition doesn't count until you are minutes away from death). Many serious illnesses (such as Cancer, AIDS, Gangreen, Rabies, etc.) are either easily treated if found early leading to either a cure (for gangreen and Rabis) or a vast increase in lifespan (for Cancer or AIDS). These same illnesses are virtually impossible to treat if they're only addresses minutes before they kill the patient.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
the portion they're talking about is between Beaumont and Texarkana, right on the border
Which makes me wonder if this was a study of US Citizens or merely US Residents?
It might be hard to eliminate the illegal population from those areas, without finishing the job that the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo stopped and annex all of Mexico.
Wrong border. Beaumont-Texarkana lies along the Texas-Louisiana border.
All of Texas has a high Hispanic population, but that area wouldn't be outstanding in that regard. Maybe even lower than most of the state. It's just a backwards "piney woods" region, sort of a cross between the Ozarks and the Bayou Country. Voodoo-practicin' hillbillies, or something.
Not to belittle the people who live there. (I can get away with hillbilly jokes as an in-group member.) It's just a very economically backward part of the state. Oddly, because Dallas banking and Houston oil lie just to the west of its two termini.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Isn't it a bit cynical?
None of the plans the Dems are proposing have the gov't take over the health care. The most they're proposing is a public option. The main objection is that it's a trojan horse -- the gov't will run health care and this is the first step. However, that would be another bill, that people can vote against if they'd like.
I used to be a little conservative, but in my view, the Republicans aren't anymore. They stand for big government (so long as it's used for spying and pork barrel military projects) and restricting freedom (USA PATRIOT Act). And while the Dems went along for the ride, they've not gotten out of the car.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
what exactly is this ignorant aversion to socialism all about?
if a guy breaks his leg, do you walk by him in the street?
no, you help him up
that's all universal healthcare is, on a societal scale. the cost of NOT helping those with medical need is far greater to society than helping those who are in need: a guy who can't provide for his family, a guy who can't show up for work, a mother who can't care for her chidlren, etc.: these situations have cost. add them up, and getting these people healthcare they can't afford currently means FINANCIAL SAVINGS for society
why is it you are so propagandized you can't see this?
did you ever actually stop and consider what "socialism" actually means on a philosophical level rather simply kneejerk in mindless propagandized ignorance?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the relevance of that is? The most amazing care in the world is of no consequence if you can't afford it. I can't see how a system optimized for the super-rich can be considered the best for a society as a whole. A better measure would be where someone on an average income would be best served, or someone with no income.
Canada and the United States share a common culture, same foods, etc, but the murder rate in the US is 3x what it is in Canada (4.2 instead of 1.4). If you remove US homicides committed by guns, the murder rate is the same. This is quite ironic, given that Canada has more firearms per capita then the US - Canada just does a better job of gun control.
As for the lack of health care in the US, the US has more people who have no coverage than the entire population of Canada. People without health care will die of untreated chronic conditions, as well as treatable acute conditions that are not tended to in time.
Canada -- Life Expectancy: 78 years (men), 83 years (women) (UN) - average is 80.4 years.
Also, the US infant mortality rate sucks 7.8 per thousand as opposed to 5.6 in Canada - almost 40% higher.
Yes, we need to get people to take responsibility for themselves. Allow doctors to refuse repeated treatment to smokers who don't quit, Ditto for alcoholics and crackheads and people who thing that "all you can eat" is a order from god, not a suggestion. Give custody to the other parent when one continues to smoke, binge drink, do crack, and/or over-stuff their pie-holes.
Make them "pay at the pump" with additional sin taxes on sweetened soft drinks, junk food, booze and simply ban the all-you-can-eat buffets outright.
Make it as socially unacceptable to be fat as it is to smoke - people get fat one bite at a time, and want to lose it without the hard work that going on a diet calls for. A waist is a terrible thing to mind, but so is seeing a couple of 400 pounders of blubber at the next table in a restaurant. Cows eat more gracefully - and they take more time to chew.
The combined experience of the Nordic countries for half a century now should stand as proof that, even if everything in life is provided for you, the vast, vast majority of people still go out and work for a living.
See, Socialism warps your mind. Can't even count on them to be decently lazy when the situation calls for it!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Change insurer for non-medical reasons (premium, employer change, so on)? Welcome to waitlist hell, and scrutinization for pre-existing conditions, even though the populace's preponderance for a given condition didn't change as a result of your enrollment.
It's a bastardized, one sided situation, and where health insurance is your ONLY realistic option, because collusion and collaboration between insurance providers has ensured that most healthcare rates are jacked up way out of the realm of ordinary affordability, it's very delineating, you either have, or you have not.
Pop Quiz: Do you really think your overnight stay in emergency had an actual cost of $12,000? Do you wonder why the same chiro treatment costs $50 without insurance, but they bill the insurance provider $165 for it? Do you think that the insurance carrier is covering that $115 out of the grace of their heart, or because they employ such amazingly stellar investment gurus that they can do so on the return from the dividend from your premiums?
Where's that bridge and that "for sale" sign?
Do check out the blogspot post, but then check this out:
According to "OECD Economic Surveys: United States 2008", p. 137 (http://tinyurl.com/mt3g76):
"It has been claimed (Ohsfeld and Schneider, 2006) that adjusting for the higher death rate from accident or injury in the United States over 1980-99 than the OECD average would increase US life expectancy at birth from 18th of of 29 OECD countries to the highest. In fact, what the panel regression estimated by these authors shows is that predicted life expectancy at birth based on US GDP per capita and OECD average death rates from these causes is the highest in the OECD. The adjustment for the gap in injury death rates between the United States and OECD average alone only increases life expectancy at birth marginally, from 19th on average among 29 countries over 1980-99 to 17th. Hence, the high ranking of adjusted life expectancy mainly reflects high US GDP per capita, not the effects of unusually high death rates from accident and injury."
In other words, the figures in Table 1-5 are not U.S. life expectancies adjusted for fatal injuries, but rather a model that assumes that both the relationship of life expectancy to per capita GDP and injuries in the U.S. follow OECD trends.
That is - they are falsely giving the U.S. credit for having the same basic life expectancy as other other high GDP OECD countries, when in fact it is markedly lower.
Check it out for yourself, the Ohsfeld and Schneider report is at:
http://www.aei.org/docLib/9780844742403.pdf
See p. 20-21.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
But every shill is an idiot, so the "but I repeat myself" follows. I was paraphrasing the famous American humourist, Mark Twain, who once said, "Are you a member of Congress? Are you an idiot? But I repeat myself..."
The best comparator for the US with regard to life expectancy is Canada, because while we have many similarities, we (Canadians) live several years longer than you (Americans.)
The two biggest differences between the countries are that our income distribution is significantly flatter than yours, and our health care system is universal and paid for via taxation (there is a nominal fee structure in some provinces, but it is equivalent to taxation.)
There are other differences: we have greater ethnic diversity than you--our Native American population alone is 4%. One in three Canadians is an immigrant. We have to deal with two official languages as well as a number of important minority languages: Hindi on the West Coast, Cree on the prairies, etc. We have a much more thinly spread population, so delivery of care and having enough people in one place to pay for big-ticket items is quite a bit harder for us than for you, with your larger, richer, denser population.
Those things are going to make it harder to deliver quality health care to Canadians, making our much longer lifespans quite remarkable. We also have a relatively large fraction of our male population working in mining, fishing, logging and farming, all of which kill people at much higher rates than other occupations (which is why they are done by men, because men dying has always been ok in all societies everywhere.)
How much of our longer lifespan is due to our flatter income distribution and how much is due to universal health care is not clear, but I think between them those are the major factors. Our flatter income distribution is achieved through more strongly progressive taxation at the top, and more robust income support at the bottom, which gives people at the bottom more latitude to make mistakes and learn from them productively, and gives people at the top less incentive to climb to the top by stepping on the faces of the oppressed masses.
Canadian society is also more democratic than American, with much hand-wringing over a recent federal election turnout that wasn't quite as low as the highest American turnouts in the past thirty years.
We are also politically and economically much more free than Americans, with far less implicit and explicit coercion regarding diversity of political opinions--as witnessed by our healthy minority and regional parties.
As a sometime small business-person who has friends doing similar work in the States I can say first hand that the burden of regulation/paperwork/bullshit on me is much smaller than in the US. You can incorporate here federally over the Web for $220 and the federal/provincial joint agreement in my province automatically handles provincial incorporation as well.
So those are some of the factors that MIGHT influence the difference, but you'd have to actually look in detail at the data and see:
a) who is dying
b) what are they dying from
to get a better sense of the actual causes. It's known as empiricism, and I highly recommend it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Are you fucking serious? This guy is talking about a family member with a potentially life threatening illness that can't be treated due to inequitable nature of our society and you suggest he eat a zero carb diet?
Of course cancers feed off sugar, cancer is YOU gone haywire, your body metabolizes sugar preferentially and so would cancer. But just like the rest of your body, any cancer (other than a brain tumor, and your body WILL PRODUCE the glucose needed to feed your brain and then a brain tumor) could metabolize any other source of energy as well.
Let me guess, your suggestion to someone with a bad computer virus would be to unplug the PC as the virus feeds off of electricity.
Funny you mention this, my step-dad is dying (6 months to a year) of a cancer (bladder) with a pretty high remission rate that has metastitized because he decided to go the "natural medicine" route instead of chemo & radiation. One of the things the *quacks* he went to had him try was exactly what you mentioned. It's bullshit. The "alkaline-body" treatment is bullshit as well. The quacks that spread this nonsense are making money off killing people as far as I am concerned. He's now taking radiation, but basically, he's not going to make it.
There is a war going on for your mind.
What the fuck, even in the United Kingdom with the NHS for over 60 years now, there is a thriving private insurance industry, with private hospitals. Some employers even over private health insurance, and some people take it out privately.
This is clearly uninformed nonsense, along the lines of claiming that Stephen Hawkings would be dead under the NHS, when he is in fact British and gets excellent treatment without which he would be dead under the NHS.
The thing is that life expectancy is closely tied to your socioeconomic group. The top group in the USA has worse life expectancy and health outcomes than the lowest group in the UK, despite expenditure on health care in the USA being twice the percentage of GDP that it is in the UK.
I don't for one minute claim our health care system is perfect, but it is *FAR* less broken than the one in the USA.
It's really easy to blame insurance companies, especially since the Democrat party has been on the propaganda trail blaming the insurance companies, but they've actually been quite acquiescent about the whole thing.
this is the image they have cultivated, but its a lie.
The truth is while the insurance companies themselves claimed they were for reform, they shadow-funded several groups which are out there right now undermining reform and propagating lies through TV spots and astroturfing.
Hint: those TV spots you see talking gloom and doom are NOT from the RNC, and certainly not the democrats. Theyre the health reform version of "hands off the internet", the notorious anti-neutrality astroturfing group.
I can tell you as a person who is "uninsurable at any price" because of crohns while 600 lb men get coverage for gastric bypasses that the insurance companies ARE to blame, they are responsible for every single massive lie being propagated today. It's vicious, ugly, and criminal what they're doing to make sure people like me, who are crippled by easily managed chronic conditions, remain bankrupt and suffering.
You may not like their solutions, but that's ok, we can come up with a solution. But believing that a single payer system will magically solve everything is just silly. Such a drastic overhaul of any system is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
yes, there are so many horrible problems that every other industrialized nation has one, and anyone in those nations suggesting getting rid of them is marginalized as a dingbat (if they say so from a political office, they don't have it in the next year).
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Your understanding is wrong. The US has less economic mobility than most developed nations.
Read this for more.
Oddly enough, generous funding for higher education and universal health care are two of the reasons for higher economic mobility elsewhere. At the time of the report, you were techinically right - the UK was about as bad as the US (and both lagged behind other European societies). Since then, the US has actually fallen even lower in mobility.
Just remember, the USA is better at everything. Why? Because!
The technical term for this idea is American Exceptionalism.
"American exceptionalism (def. "exceptionalism") refers to the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among developed nations[1] in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The roots of the term are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville,[2] who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.[citation needed] The term itself did not emerge until after World War II[3] when it was embraced by neoconservative[4] pundits in what was described in the International Herald Tribune as "an ugly twist of late".[5] More recently, President Barack Obama noted that "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."[6] He also said that "there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."[7] Research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.S.] public, but very little evidence of unilateral attitudes".[2]
The theory of American exceptionalism has a number of opponents, especially from the Left.[8][9] The U.S. Democratic Party in particular is said to be "fundamentally opposed to" American exceptionalism.[10] They argue that the belief is "self-serving and jingoistic" (see slavery and civil rights issues, Western betrayal, and the failure to aid Jews fleeing the Nazis),[1] that it is based on a myth,[11] and that "[t]here is a growing refusal to accept" the idea of exceptionalism both nationally and internationally.[12] "
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Because you should be able to buy fire insurance after your house burns down.
Do you have the slightest clue how insurance works?
Here's what would happen if fire insurance were like health insurance.
Under this system fire insurance is provided by your employer, who gets a group discount from the insurance companies. Neither your employer nor the insurance company is allowed to disclose how much the insurance costs, because they both consider it a trade secret. Once a year, in November, you get the chance to change your fire insurance company if you are unhappy with them. But since you probably haven't had a fire, what is there to be unhappy about?
If you lose your job, you lose your fire insurance but the insurance company is required by law to allow you to pay an exorbitant sum to continue your insurance for 6 months. They will also allow you to buy a cheaper plan, which will replace your house with a tent if it burns down. By the way, the most common way to lose your job is to have a house fire.
If you are self employed or unemployed, you might be able to buy insurance. It will be much more expensive than the group plans that employers get. You will also be disqualified if you have had a fire in the past, smoke, or have been seen with matches or a cigarette lighter.
The way the fire insurance system works is that your insurance company will provide you a list of twenty fire inspectors. You are required to have a fire inspector in order to get access to a fire station. You will call all twenty and their secretaries will tell you that they aren't taking any new clients. You will eventually get taken on by one of them because your mother is one of his clients.
The inspector is paid a flat fee per year per client by the insurance company. He gets paid this amount whether he inspects your home or not. Each time he does inspect your home he might get a small payment from the insurance company, but you need to give him a $20 additional payment. This is to encourage you not to get your home inspected. If your home has apparent problems that need further investigation, the inspector does not get additional payments from the insurance company. If your home needs repairs to prevent a fire, the insurance company will pay for them, but the inspector might get charged a fee for referring you to a contractor. This is to encourage your fire inspector not to refer you to a contractor to perform repairs.
The fire inspector contracts with a fire station to handle emergencies. It might not be the closest fire station to your home. None of the firefighters working at the fire station are employees of the fire station. They are all independent contractors who are paid by the person who has a fire, or by the insurance company. The only employees at the fire station are the 35 people they have on staff to handle billing the 65 insurance companies that they contract with.
If you have a fire, the first thing you do is call your fire inspector. If he agrees that there is a fire, he will call the insurance company to get authorization to call the fire station. Some fraction of the time these authorizations will be denied.
When the fire station gets the call they will also call the insurance company for authorization. When each fireman gets to the house, they will ask for a copy of your insurance card before putting out the fire. If any of the people involved forgets to get authorization, they won't be paid by the insurance company. They will either bill you, or eat the expenses.
Fortunately it was just a minor fire entirely contained in a frying pan. After the fire has been put out, and a contractor has started repairs, you will receive a bunch of bills that have "THIS IS NOT A BILL" written on them. You will get one from each fireman, one from the fire station, one from your fire inspector, one from the contractor who is repairing your house and one from each of the construction workers the contractor has hired. They will come wit
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