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Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

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Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#11
Let's all go to San Marino!

I think the proximal answers for "why" are in the World Health Report, which tells you why people die.https://www.who.int/data/gho/publications/world-health-stati...

Some of those you'd assume are to do with health care in general, but some (alcohol and tobacco consumption) are more like direct causes in and of themselves.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#12
Any analysis like this that doesn’t factor in the East needing to catch up after 50 years of communist policies is misleading. I would be curious to see the improvement rate in say, Poland and Croatia over the last twenty years factored in and projected into the next two decades. Especially if we include economic success; Poland for example is probably going to be more economically successful than places like Portugal, if it isn’t already.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#14
post #7

I get the feeling that Universal Healthcare (medicare for all) would probably level the difference? What else is responsible for the almost 4yr difference with e.g. France? Is it diet? Is the air/water worse in the US?

> I get the feeling that Universal Healthcare (medicare for all) would probably level the difference?

Sometimes my wife convince me to try American candy/foods that we buy in these "foreign foods stores" locally, because she grew up eating some of them in her country.

And every time we check the contents by reading the nutrition-labels or checking with apps like Yuka, it turns out that the stuff Americans put in the mouth and stomach are filled with stuff that is outright illegal to put in foods here in Europe.

So if I were to guess, it would be related to what is legal to put in foods/consumables.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#15
post #7

I get the feeling that Universal Healthcare (medicare for all) would probably level the difference? What else is responsible for the almost 4yr difference with e.g. France? Is it diet? Is the air/water worse in the US?

Probably a combination of Universal Healthcare, Food Regulations (from what I understand, food quality regulations in the US are lacking compared to the EU), more balanced cultural attitudes towards work-life balance, less car-focused cities and more walkable cities.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#16
post #7

I get the feeling that Universal Healthcare (medicare for all) would probably level the difference? What else is responsible for the almost 4yr difference with e.g. France? Is it diet? Is the air/water worse in the US?

It's not just the universal healthcare enables access to healthcare to more people. When healthcare is something being paid for by everyone, the state of other people's health matters to you too (not just your own).

Therefore, things like public smoking bans (as we have in the UK) as well as public health campaigns around alcohol consumption and healthy eating become palatable. Regulating harmful foodstuffs becomes more important. The cost of smokers' adverse health was (and still is) enormous, and reducing that burden benefits everyone.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#17
post #15
post #7

I get the feeling that Universal Healthcare (medicare for all) would probably level the difference? What else is responsible for the almost 4yr difference with e.g. France? Is it diet? Is the air/water worse in the US?

Probably a combination of Universal Healthcare, Food Regulations (from what I understand, food quality regulations in the US are lacking compared to the EU), more balanced cultural attitudes towards work-life balance, less car-focused cities and more walkable cities.

These are all universal across the EU and yet there's big differences between EU countries.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#18

Any analysis like this that doesn’t factor in the East needing to catch up after 50 years of communist policies is misleading. I would be curious to see the improvement rate in say, Poland and Croatia over the last twenty years factored in and projected into the next two decades. Especially if we include economic success; Poland for example is probably going to be more economically successful than places like Portuga…

You can really see when things changed - newborn life expectancy in Poland https://obserwatorgospodarczy.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/...

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#19

Any analysis like this that doesn’t factor in the East needing to catch up after 50 years of communist policies is misleading. I would be curious to see the improvement rate in say, Poland and Croatia over the last twenty years factored in and projected into the next two decades. Especially if we include economic success; Poland for example is probably going to be more economically successful than places like Portuga…

This. This picture only looks at current boomers which heavily favors those in western Europe who live like kings due to wealth, taxation and policies being catered towards them since they make a majority of the voters and caught the good times of economic growth and wealth building, but some of those economies kinda stagnated post 2008, which will mostly affect future generations of retirees not the current ones.

So I expect the picture of future retirees will look very different between countries with growing economies and the ones with declining/stagnating economies.

Re: Life Expectancy in Europe Compared to the US

#20
post #3

Spot the "democratic socialist" countries.

Switzerland appears to have the highest of them all, and certainly isn’t socialist, although it’s definitely democratic.

How is its safety net? My Swiss colleagues say there’s decent support re: housing, etc
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