Re: Productivity - Norway leads the table.

On Sep 13, 11:57 pm, MooseFET <kensm...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 13, 9:32 pm, James Arthur <dagmargoodb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sep 13, 6:34 pm, MooseFET wrote:
[...]
You are assuming that most heart disease kills quickly. This is not
the case.

My dad's colleagues said in half the cases the first symptom of heart
disease is (sudden) death.

Yes, that is often the first symptom that is evident to the person
with it. Many of the processes could be detected with fairly simple
tests.

No they can't. That's what I'm saying. My dad had an EKG & other
care in the year before the fateful day. That is to say, he was
_specifically_ screened for heart disease, but to no avail.


The speed of the ambulance is also part of the health care
system. If you use donkey carts for it, less people make it to the
doctor alive.

Of people who make it to the hospital, half die in the next 28 days,
at least in the UK:http://www.heartstats.org/datapage.asp?id=1590

Note the "Patients were followed for an average of 3.5 years. More
than half of the 21,484 patients died during the

study."http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=washingtonstory&sid=aHLr0iUd7.zA

Yes, Lipitor reduces 2nd heart attacks. AFAICT statins are good
drugs, if you can tolerate them. Even better treatments are being
developed by 'evil' pharmaceutical companies right now.


Here's an orange to go with that apple "The proportion of heart attack
victims alive 30 days after the emergency has reached almost

86%."http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.
1586518.0.heart_attack_...


I'm not sure what they're referring to...ah, here it is:
"...the percentage of patients who were alive 30 days after being
admitted to hospital with a heart attack..."

so this is survival of patients who were still alive upon arrival at
the hospital, a select group. Slow transport would actually weed out
a bunch of marginal cases and improve(!) this statistic.

Also, we've got to be careful here in assuming other nation's figures
can be directly compared to the US though. For example, it's not a
given that other peoples are equally sick.

In countries that have less heart disease to being with, it stands to
reason that they'd have many more people that barely have it--less
advanced disease, more slowly advancing: milder cases--and have better
outcomes because of that.



Also the health care system either pays for an anual
physical or it doesn't. If it does the heart disease or the factors
leading up to it can be detected.

The best healthcare in the world doesn't seem to make much difference.

A difference in what and what are you calling the best?

I meant my dad had all those advantages you attribute to a good
healthcare system, but it didn't make any difference for him.

And he's more the rule, not some rare exception. My heavens I could
give _so_ many examples, but that's the sum of my somewhat extensive
vicarious experience.


My dad--himself a (great) physician, married to a nurse, obviously
with many friends and colleagues who were also fine doctors--he
dropped in his tracks and died one sad day, from heart disease,
undiagnosed. He was 65. I can hardly imagine health care better than
his.

The carpenter's house always needs fixing. Just because he was a
doctor working in the area, you can't assume he was getting the best
healthcare.

The assumption is yours; I'm not assuming, I'm speaking from personal
knowledge of him, his medical history, and his medical records.

How often did he get a complete physical?

Annually. He himself had a personal physician, and as I wrote above,
he'd had a physical and an ekg that year and other screenings. That
year he'd been to his doc a few times &, from the tests run, it looks
like they suspected something small was awry, but were on completely
the wrong track. They blew it.

And the problem was missed despite warning signs. My dad had
symptoms--getting out of breath too easily--for at least a year, but
he fooled everyone by being in great shape despite it. We ran 4 miles
together the month before. I chastised him for being a bit wimpy, and
he agreed to 'shape up.'

Top guys and top care don't fix everything, and even commonly miss
common things.


And Bill Clinton, after all, had the best healthcare in the world.

Last time I checked, he was still alive.


But he had a heart attack!, something which never could've happened if
healthcare were more important than lifestyle...that's my point. In a
battle between healthcare and Bill's beloved burgers, burgers win!


Thinking back over the last
several presidents, I can't think of one that died of a heart attack.



People were claiming that it was the american diet that made the
difference. That claim is now, I assert disproven.

So you know that the average diet in the US is not making a difference?
Wow, that's quite brazen. To me the average consumption of take-out and
burger joint food is mind boggling.

No, I think Ken's half right here. It's clear that bad habits shorten
life, but the question at hand is proving that Americans' bad habits
shorten their lives compared to certain European countries. So you'd
have to show a) bad habits, that b) shorten life, c) in Americans, d)
more than in Europeans, e) that account for the difference.

Or, in my case, showing that shorter life expectancy in USA is due to
bad habits of a few groups (my notion), not generally worse healthcare
(Ken's notion). That's gonna be hard to show.

Actually, I only took up the claim that is was the health care when I
saw such bogus arguments that it wasn't.

Okay, noted, but I'm not quite sure I see the difference. AIUI, your
theory is still that poor healthcare in the US explains why, oh,
Swedish men, for example, live 3 years longer than American.

It was a report quoted by
someone else that was suggesting that the US has poor health care.

Okay, noted, but could you point me to it? I can't find it.

Best,
James Arthur

.

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