Re: American health care best? No...Most expensive? Yes...Ranked 12th
From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 06/29/04
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Date: 29 Jun 2004 15:30:09 -0700
bluefins2005@yahoo.com (Blue Sea) wrote in message news:<61a8bd38.0406281115.38c0f6ed@posting.google.com>...
> According to study of UN on health care issues, US came in 17th, below
> many advanced countries such as Canada, France, etc...
> "Sid9" <sid9@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:<2TMDc.944$qG.457@bignews3.bellsouth.net>...
> > June 28, 2004
> > OP-ED COLUMNIST
> > A Second Opinion
> > By BOB HERBERT
> >
> > In an article a few years ago in The Journal of the American Medical
> > Association, Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
> > took a look at the overall health of the American people, and compared
> > conditions here to those in other industrialized countries.
> >
> > What she found was disturbing.
> >
> > "The fact is that the U.S. population does not have anywhere near the best
> > health in the world," she wrote. "Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,
> > the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16
> > available health indicators."
> >
> > She said the U.S. came in 13th, dead last, in terms of low birth weight
> > percentages; 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality over all; 13th
> > for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes); 11th for life
> > expectancy at the age of 1 for females and 12th for males; and 10th for life
> > expectancy at the age of 15 for females and 12th for males.
> > She noted in the article that more than 40 million Americans lacked health
> > insurance (the figure is about 43 million now) and she described the state
> > of Americans' health as "relatively poor."
> > "U.S. children are particularly disadvantaged," she said, adding, "But even
COMMENT:
We've been over and over this kind of mis-applied criticism in this
forum.
For one thing, infant mortality figures are very hard to cross
compare, since a country can drastically affect its infant mortality
rate by classifying the very most premature infants (for example,
below 1 kg) as either "live-births" or miscarriages.
Adult life expectancy is easier to compare, but it should be
recognized that total life expectancy in counties it's not a simple
matter of how good the medical system is. It's also heavily influenced
by cultural factors like crime, youth violence, drug addiction rates
(including tobacco and alcohol) etc.
If you take the US states which have the best life expectancy, like
Hawaii, Minnasota, South Dakota, and Utah, you find that they compare
very well with those of Japan in Iceland. They are as good as anywhere
in the world-- yet there is nothing special about the US health care
system present in these states. For example, male life expectancy at
birth in Hawaii is 75.4 and for females it's 81.4. For Utah men it's
74.9 and for Minnisota women it's 80.8. These are due to cultural
factors completely independent of doctors, hospitals and even
insurance plans. And so they are also in Japan and Iceland, too, no
doubt. In fact, I have little doubt that the Hawaii beats all the
other states in the US in lifespan is due in part to the Japanese
Americans who live there. It's not that Hawaiian doctors or hospitals
are amazing.
What drags things down in the US are places like Washington DC where
males at birth can expect only 61.8 years and women 73.3. That gives
an average of 67.5-- piss poor. Next is Louisiana at 72.7 and
Mississippi at 72.6.
Now the people who blame the medical system for crack babies and gang
shootings in Washington DC, have a real problem. What they are
demanding is magic medicine, Star Trek medicine. There aren't fixes
for kids shot in the head and babies left in dumpsters. Not medical
fixes, anyway.
But those are the underlying assumptions of this kind of criticism. It
says, essentially, that US medicine may be good enough for Utahns and
Hawaiians and Minnestotans to live as long as anybody in the world,
but it's not good enough to allow people in Washington DC to do it,
even with them trying like mad to kill themselves.
Well, that's true. But what of it?
Steve Harris
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