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Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

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Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#81

Post by rsynnott »

narrator wrote: post #7

We spend double, as a percentage of GDP, what any other rich country spends on health care, so that's not it.

I mean, any country could jump to the top of that league table by just building endless hospitals and immediately setting fire to them. There is still a question of value for money.

There may also be an aspect of funny cost accounting there. One reason given for the rather high medical salaries in the US, for instance, is the fact that trainee doctors, dentists, etc tend to incur truly horrifying levels of student debt.

> Now, [US] physicians graduate with a median $194,000 in student debt.

This generally isn't the case in most developed countries, but in that case the state may be spending more on _education_.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#82

Post by rsynnott »

julienb_sea wrote: post #48
heavyset_go wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other first world nations spend half of what we do, and they have better outcomes and quality of care[1]. They are able to insure all of their citizens with it while the US doesn't. [1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...

Well, the US has better outcomes for employed, insured and non-overweight folks; dramatically lower wait times, better cancer survival rates and less competition for care. Expense is also a nonissue on employer insurance. Unfortunately the US aggregate outcomes are dragged heavily down by an unhealthy population and high barriers to care for the uninsured.

> Expense is also a nonissue on employer insurance.

My impression was that many if not most Americans would have to pay an excess (not sure of the American term; money paid by an insured party on using insurance) for any medical care with their work insurance. Is this not the case?

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#83

Post by samatman »

School-Cotton wrote: post #70
missedthecue wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the median disposable income per person, after adjustments for government provided healthcare and education is enormously higher than any other nation, according to the OECD. https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm

Yes, hence the quip about "rich people in it". A more serious way of putting it might be that the US is in raw dollar terms one of the richest countries in the world (certainly by far the richest large one), yet in many ways (infrastructure, quality of administration, political culture, etc.) it feels more similar to a middle-income one.

Yes but that quip doesn't work when we're comparing the median. The US does have an absolutely nosebleed wealthy 0.1%, yes, but if you split the population exactly in half, and pick the bloke in the middle, he has really rather a lot of assets, relative to most anywhere else.

"The richest poor country in the world" might be closer to it. As the rest of the threads under this post will reveal, we mostly agree that something is wrong with this country — but putting our finger on what that is can be challenging.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#84

Post by orwin »

viking1066 wrote: post #40

Compare wealth and life expectancy of any ethnicity living in USA with the population living in their previous habitat, and the US population comes out on top. Japanese Americans for example have higher life expectancy than Japanese in Japan, and I expect the same would be true for Ethiopians. This shows the superiority of the American system. I need to second the previous comment that this article is either based on…

But any black person coming legally from the Nigeria/Mali Area to the US will have a lower life expectancy than if he came to Europe?

Maybe this is crazy, but here is an explanation: legal immigrants are richer and more educated than average in their country of origin and thus have better outcomes after having immigrated.

My grandfather is living in Lincoln county WV (since before i even knew him), i know a lot of people in Huntington and Charleston, in fact most Americans i know live between there and Fayetteville, WV. I would be shocked if life expectancy there is higher than 70, especially if you're not in a fringe group.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#85

Post by jandrewrogers »

If you dig into the statistics, the reason is not what most people assume. The US has anomalously high death rates due to unintentional injury (accidents) in the young adult age groups, which skews the average for the overall population. If young people died in accidents at similar rates to the rest of the world, the average life expectancy would look quite good. This is the 3rd most common cause of death in the US, generally.

The primary source of injury in young people creating this situation? Car accidents. And remembering how me and my friends were behind the wheel at that age, this is completely unsurprising. Young people in many other countries do not drive nearly as much.

Everyone looks for medical reasons but it is largely fatal accident rates.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#86

Post by [deleted] »

JimTheMan wrote: post #14
admiralspoo wrote: post #10

Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Are other races somehow not American? I never understood this argument. "If it weren't for all those black people and immigrants we'd actually be really good! Those other countries are just too 'homogenous'. " And then somehow this fact apparently dismisses other countries efforts at providing universal/preventative healthcare and initiatives that the US simply does not.

[deleted]

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#87

Post by samatman »

admiralspoo wrote: post #10

Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Did you mean to point out that Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks, all have substantially higher life expectancies than their co-ethnics in the relevant home countries, while White life expectancy is substantially lower, and has in fact dropped precipitously in the last twenty years?

Because a) that's how it works and b) most people replying to you are drawing the opposite conclusion. Either way, you've done a poor job of expressing yourself here.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#88

Post by TuringNYC »

bryan11 wrote: post #77
julienb_sea wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For healthcare, you can probably segment America a little more generously into insured vs uninsured. If you are insured in America, your healthcare is reasonably good. Lower quality plans may have more restrictive networks or higher deductibles and maximums, but these are manageable and neither are truly barriers to care.

You could segment them in three sets: well insured, people with catastrophic health plans, and uninsured. Many employers are switching to high deductible health plans and that deductible may be thousands of dollars, i.e. catastrophic plans. When going to a doctor for a simple diagnosis or bloodwork can easily cost $400 to $1000, many put off doctor visits unless it's an emergency. It can easily become a choice betwee…

That's a great explanation. It also shows how short-sighted such plans us at a national macro level -- because an ounce of prevention can prevent hundreds of thousands in future future bills.

A perfect example is vitamin deficiency and the very serious effects such deficiencies can have, and how inexpensive the preventative care is.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#89

Post by vkou »

samatman wrote: post #83
School-Cotton wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, hence the quip about "rich people in it". A more serious way of putting it might be that the US is in raw dollar terms one of the richest countries in the world (certainly by far the richest large one), yet in many ways (infrastructure, quality of administration, political culture, etc.) it feels more similar to a middle-income one.

Yes but that quip doesn't work when we're comparing the median. The US does have an absolutely nosebleed wealthy 0.1%, yes, but if you split the population exactly in half, and pick the bloke in the middle, he has really rather a lot of assets, relative to most anywhere else. "The richest poor country in the world" might be closer to it. As the rest of the threads under this post will reveal, we mostly agree that som…

It doesn't work when you're comparing incomes, but it does work when you compare incomes minus costs.

Having a higher median income is all well and good, until you find it all eaten by education, healthcare, and transportation costs... In addition to less financially denominated costs. [1]

But eh, if you didn't need to take care of your kids, or yourself, you could theoretically afford more iPhones.

[1] Having lived in Canada, and the US, I can't put an exact dollar value on the stress of, for example, having to deal with the American healthcare system, but its non-zero.

Re: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

#90

Post by [deleted] »

JimTheMan wrote: post #14
admiralspoo wrote: post #10

Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Are other races somehow not American? I never understood this argument. "If it weren't for all those black people and immigrants we'd actually be really good! Those other countries are just too 'homogenous'. " And then somehow this fact apparently dismisses other countries efforts at providing universal/preventative healthcare and initiatives that the US simply does not.

[deleted]
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