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The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

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Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#71

"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." Wow. Actually impressed with the analysis backing this up. If you read the entire thread, he actually covers nearly every correlating factor I could think of. And it's pretty clearly drugs, guns, suicide, and cars. (The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong). The one that is crazy to me is the uptick in driving fatalities. Cars are an order of…

Something happened during the initial stages of the pandemic. People lost their absolute minds and aggressive and reckless driving got way, way worst than I've ever seen. Hell, about an hour ago a cop tailgated me while I was going 15 over the limit, wove through traffic to cut me off, run a red light, then damn near ran another driver off the road. No lights, no emergency, just an asshole. This is the behavior you h…

I thought people in the US drove like insane idiots long before the pandemic. Weaving in and out of lanes, excessive speeding, road rage over the slightest inconvenience and, the dumbest one to me because it is virtually effortless, failure to use turn signals. It's very easy to drive safely but a good chunk of divers seem to outright refuse.

Having said that, the data backs you up. 7% increase in per capita road fatalities in 2020. Then a 10.5% increase on top of that in 2021!

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#73

"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." Wow. Actually impressed with the analysis backing this up. If you read the entire thread, he actually covers nearly every correlating factor I could think of. And it's pretty clearly drugs, guns, suicide, and cars. (The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong). The one that is crazy to me is the uptick in driving fatalities. Cars are an order of…

Re: car fatalities, one word: phones.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#75

"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." Wow. Actually impressed with the analysis backing this up. If you read the entire thread, he actually covers nearly every correlating factor I could think of. And it's pretty clearly drugs, guns, suicide, and cars. (The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong). The one that is crazy to me is the uptick in driving fatalities. Cars are an order of…

>"1 in 25 Americans being born will not make it to their 40th birthday." >(The cardio health one doesn't seem as strong).

Here's a bit of an anecdote, but I bet my family isn't alone in this type of story... my cousin died from cardiac arrest at age 45. Keeping the story here brief - he was a high-income business owner who got into a tough spot in his marriage and business, found himself without health insurance when he had a medical episode. Knew something was wrong and would likely bankrupt him - and we think that's why he didn't follow up with his doctor and was dead two weeks later. Congenital issue, could have been easily resolved - but without health insurance it was probably a death sentence either physically or financially.

Now, this was just as the ACA was coming into play - but I'd argue it's moot. The ACA was well-intentioned, but has not actually improved the insurance or care situation for the majority of Americans. I need a surgery at present that won't be covered by my insurance to any meaningful degree, and being in rural America my care options are limited. So I'll live with regular pain because the system doesn't work. And I hear stories like this in my social circles weekly.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#76
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government spends the most in the world on subsidizing corporations for healthcare. There is nothing "socialized" about it. The public in general gets very little of that benefit. And that holds true even if you include Medicare.

I meant only Medicare and Medicaid. The US government spends on Medicare and Medicare more then any other country on healthcare.

That's really only because healthcare is so absolutely insanely more expensive here.

You'd have to normalize those numbers. It doesn't mean the same thing if the US spends a billion dollars on 1 million procedures when a more civilized society can do those same million procedures for 300 million.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But is that a cause or an effect?

Pretty sure dying early doesn't make you fat.

Americans are fatter because their food is toxic and their car centric lifestyle is sedentary and unhealthy

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#78

This seems unsurprising given the drastic differences in typical diet and exercise levels, and the availability of healthcare.

Eh, we Brits are no models of good diet and exercise. According to [1] while Americans have the highest obesity rates among major countries, Brits have the third-highest obesity rates.

[1] https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/21/british-people-fat-no-denying...

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But is that a cause or an effect?

Pretty sure dying early doesn't make you fat.

I think they meant is it the cause of dying early or an effect of whatever is killing Americans.

Re: The average American has the same life expectancy as the worst part of England

#80

[flagged]

Health is primarily a social enterprise, that's the point

Clean water, sewage control, clean air, clean food, safe cities, prohibition on toxic chemicals in the environment, access to good information and appropriate care, disease control - hyper individual personal responsibility finger wagging won't get you anywhere to fixing these things and that's what the "there is no such thing as a society" people do not get because they've trained themselves to call those things socialism.

These are the consequences of that pig headed pridefully ignorant ideology

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