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U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#162

Post by ams6110 »

rsync wrote: post #152
cpursley wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there is the widespread obesity because of corn syrup being a heavily subsidized food ingredient You forgot to mention that the US Gov't also subsides the other side via food stamps, which poor folks use to purchase corn syrup and cheap grain foods, further exasperating the obesity epidemic. It's true insanity.

"... which poor folks use to purchase corn syrup and cheap grain foods ..." This is true. It is truly insane that public food benefits can be used to buy soft drinks, sugar cereals and candy: "Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items"[1] [1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

To be fair, it's much easier to separate "food" from "not food" than to have to qualify whether any particular product is "good" or "junk" food.

Can you imagine the additional bureaucracy needed to classify (and enforce) the use of food stamps on a more granular level?

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#163

Post by briandear »

Latteland wrote: post #155
ocschwar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because wealthy aging boomers spend more on speculative anti-aging fads in a bull market.

Also because the us healthcare market is for profit and they have managed to blocked market reforms.

Government regulates and manipulates health care to such a degree that its hard to even suggest a free market is anywhere close to what is observed.

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#164

Post by daveFNbuck »

cpursley wrote: post #145
jillesvangurp wrote: post #81

I can think of a few other causes like sickness being a potentially bankrupting event so people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late. This apparently is a risk, even if you have insurance because you are at the mercy of insurers not tossing you out over such whimsical reasons as pre-existing conditions or other bureaucratic tricks they use to kill their customers rather than getting them cured. There are…

> Then there is the widespread obesity because of corn syrup being a heavily subsidized food ingredient You forgot to mention that the US Gov't also subsides the other side via food stamps, which poor folks use to purchase corn syrup and cheap grain foods, further exasperating the obesity epidemic. It's true insanity.

Are you arguing that poor people would live longer if they had less money for food?

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#166

Post by mrweasel »

fooker wrote: post #40
thrower123 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there other countries where the news media is as hell-bent on stoking the fires of craziness and painting the world as a horrible, horrible place full only of strife and despair?

India

Has a declining suicide rate. The rate is higher than that of the US, but improving, while the rate in the US is getting worse.

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#167

Post by tvjunky »

bluedino wrote: post #124
josho wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late I saw this when travelling in the US for work. (I am Canadian). Striking up conversations in restaurants I met staff that worked while sick because they couldn't afford to take sick days, or worked with chronic conditions because they couldn't afford a visit to a doctor. Even worse are the major chronic diseases from our lifestyle (hypertension, diabetes, etc…

Many people are just too stubborn to go to the doctor. And many people go, knowing they can’t pay, because they’ll just never pay the bill and will dodge the bill collectors. Plenty of people receive free healthcare in the USA by virtue of never paying, but getting treated. It’s the middle class who pays their huge bills. Insurance doesn’t cover why these days and deductibles are insanely high. The poor get treated a…

The "middle class" you're referring to is literally everyone who has insurance. This has nothing to do with income. Non-payment is not the cause of the high prices. The system is broken in a number of ways. Premiums are a crazy percent of income, putting them out of reach for people who don't have employer subsidized plans. Even then, those employer subsidized plans get more expensive and provide less with each re-enrollment. Here is a small personal example of someone who works in tech for a very large enterprise and is lucky to have the means to handle it: I went to the ER for an issue, admitted for 6 days with a myriad of tests to diagnose. The total bill for that was over $100k. Even though I went to one hospital nearly, $40k of those billings were "out of network" and I had no choice in the matter. I easily met my high deductible but, there were still random bills "not covered". That made my part nearly 10k. This open enrollment period, my employer has decided to drop all "out of network" support because only 10% of the workforce used it in the past. So, if I were to have an issue like this again, my part would be in the neighborhood of $50k for a few test and few days in a bed. That's a scary prospect for a lot of people. For some, letting a bill like that go to collections may be their only option.

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#168

Post by SilasX »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #81

I can think of a few other causes like sickness being a potentially bankrupting event so people don't go to a doctor when they should or too late. This apparently is a risk, even if you have insurance because you are at the mercy of insurers not tossing you out over such whimsical reasons as pre-existing conditions or other bureaucratic tricks they use to kill their customers rather than getting them cured. There are…

>his too is much less of a thing outside of the US where pain medication tends to be very strictly regulated and not advertised every 10 minutes on TV.

I've never seen a commercial for a pain medication or opioid, they're usually for some heart/skin condition, ED, STD treatment, or something related to aging.

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#169

Post by balibebas »

briandear wrote: post #163
Latteland wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also because the us healthcare market is for profit and they have managed to blocked market reforms.

Government regulates and manipulates health care to such a degree that its hard to even suggest a free market is anywhere close to what is observed.

It's not just healthcare, and it's not just the US. Dig deeper, look at the ex-Nazi bank called B.I.S. See how much Tether they printed in 2009.

Re: U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Further

#170

Post by SilasX »

verelo wrote: post #78
MichaelApproved wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone replied to you with an ignorant comment that was deleted. I'm copy/pasting it here anyway because they are spewing common misconceptions that need to be squashed. > The US has 330 million people. Do we really care if a bunch self-select out of the gene pool? While some people do choose to use drugs with their own free will, this epidemic isn't about that. Many people getting addicted have been initially presc…

Seems their comment is gone too. I’d love to have been given the chance to downvote them. To me this all boils down to what you’re saying, but I’d like to just add mention that i think the bigger disease in the US that enables situations like this is the acceptance of misinformation. As you pointed out, many many many of these cases are started by a medically issued prescription, and it kills multiple times more peop…

You can still see the comment if you go to your settings and set "showdead" to yes. I'm guessing it was flag-killed for being inflammatory?

But to take it seriously, what fraction of opioid deaths started from a prescription?

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