China Overtakes US For Healthy Lifespan, WHO Data Finds (reuters.com) 286
According to World Health Organization data, China has overtaken the United States in healthy life expectancy at birth for the first time. The data from 2016 finds Chinese newborns can look forward to 68.7 years of healthy life ahead of them, compared with 68.5 years for American babies. "American newborns can still expect to live longer overall -- 78.5 years compared to China's 76.4 -- but the last 10 years of American lives are not expected to be healthy," reports Reuters. From the report: The United States was one of only five countries, along with Somalia, Afghanistan, Georgia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where healthy life expectancy at birth fell in 2016, according to a Reuters analysis of the WHO data, which was published without year-on-year comparisons in mid-May. The best outlook was for Singaporean babies, who can count on 76.2 years of health on average, followed by those in Japan, Spain and Switzerland. The United States came 40th in the global rankings, while China was 37th. In terms of overall life expectancy China is also catching up with the United States, which Reuters calculations suggest it is on course to overtake around 2027. Meanwhile U.S. life expectancy is falling, having peaked at 79 years in 2014, the first such reversal for many years.
lies (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:lies (Score:5, Funny)
China is also very well known for lying about things and faking stats to appear better than everyone else. It goes all the way from the local level with fake recycling bins that go straight to trash pickup to faking national statistics.
"The United States was one of only five countries, along with Somalia, Afghanistan, Georgia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where healthy life expectancy at birth fell in 2016" They must be really good at it to manipulate the US official figures....
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However, the GP post was not referring to the U.S. number being deflated. They were referring to the probability that China's number was significantly inflated.
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Yes, isn't it interesting that Obamacare resulted in healthy life expectancy in the U.S. going down?
Do you have any evidence to suggest causation? Because it seems more likely to be correlation.
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social control theory: deviance is exponential (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the prevailing elementary-school standard of discourse gaining sway in America sat this one out.
Giorgos Lazaridis On PID theory [pcbheaven.com]:
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If that is the case, what caused the trajectory of increasing life expectancy to reverse course?
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The US figures are at least partially influenced by the opiate crisis [nbcnews.com].
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Which is the same or worse in Canada. Wiki says 64,000 deaths in 2016. Here in BC with a population of about 5 million, it was about 1400 deaths and our lifespan didn't drop.
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It depends on the demographics, too. If one 20-year-old ODs on heroin, that's statistically going to hurt a lot more than a 45-year-old. And Canada has us beat by 3+ years in any event - and has since at least the 50s.
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From a physician's standpoint it was terrifying, too. The guidance went from "people shouldn't be in pain, go ahead and prescribe opiates" to "you'll lose your license or go to jail if you overprescribe", with no real firm definition of "overprescribe". Along with the dramatic increase in drug-seeking patients (versus patients seeking pain treatment), it chased my wife right out of the pain management field. It's been crazy.
Re:lies (Score:4, Informative)
China has way more traffic deaths than America. Although they drive less, they have about twice the per capita death rate.
List of countries by traffic deaths [wikipedia.org]
Re:lies (Score:4, Interesting)
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I am not surprised the "hero" of that story is a BMW driver.
Re:lies (Score:5, Informative)
And you can do the same thing with chronic illnesses. You just get the number of chronic illnesses in each age cohort and then calculate the probability to catch a chronic illness within the next year.
If you sum up each age cohort from 0 to the maximum age, you get two probabilities: First, the probable life span of a newborn, and second the probable lifespan without chronic illnesses for a newborn.
This statistic does not make any statements about the reasons why the life expectancy and the healthy life span expectancy is as high as it is. It just reports a number.
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. This is purely statistics.
Sort of. There is an issue of definition as well as culture that could influence infant mortality rates. That is different than X number of people with Y disease.
As an example, the US and Canada are two countries which register a much higher proportion of babies weighing less than 500g, with low odds of survival, resulting in higher reported infant mortality. [oecd.org] Does it really mean that health care in the US is worse because we have more preterm babies and try save their life? The EU varies between 5-10% [who.int] whi
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Even then, it's hard to imagine China surpassing US in life expectancy with the pollution problems they have.
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Yet the opioids only killed 64,000 people in the States in 2016, which isn't that much. Shit here in BC with a population of about 5 million saw 1,400 deaths and out lifespan is still increasing.
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Those are by and large choices we make and contribute to our risks for early onset death. It's all so meaningless on it's face value.
Life expectancy is a good measure of success, since if you can't stop people from dying you will likely fail at other things too. If your nation's life expectancy is going down while every other Western nation is going up you should be asking why.
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We know why. This is no mystery. It's just not being mentioned because it would interfere with the narrative.
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Meh. The difference in life expectancy between the US and higher rated countries could come down to personal choice and lifestyle. Obesity isn't good for life expectancy and the US sure does come ahead on that one. A better measure is something like life expectancy after cancer diagnosis when medicine and healthcare have a direct correlation to how long you live.
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Those are all negligent numbers for this statistic. Nice try at thinking to take pot shots, though.
Re: lies (Score:4, Interesting)
> Not to mention US police kill more people than criminals do in some countries, and more school kids have been killed this year than military...
Unless there's a war going on, why should the military be that dangerous?
The real problem with your "zinger" is that it demonstrates that Americans have gotten entirely accustomed to being in a state of constant war. Kids that die in uniform tend to be not much older than school age.
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Much of our problem is a novel one historically -- too much cheap, calorie-rich food.
Economists studying just such longevity would correlate it with lack of calories per person or high dollars per calorie vs. earning. Here we have the opposite.
Don't worry, we lead the way but many nations are following.
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Interestingly enough, obesity rates and obesity related mortality rates rise in every country that establishes a trade agreement with the United States. The more open the country becomes to food imports from the United States, the higher the rates rise. Such cheap and delicious poison.
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In other words: Lay off the Twinkies.
I saw Old El Paso being sold in Spain and it really blew my mind. I really though the Spanish were supposed to have better taste than that.
Although they make the kind of cheeseburgers that sound like something Homer Simpson would come up with.
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The price of food is not that relevant, it is availability of alternatives and education that matters.
And then again, growing up with "bad food" simply trains your taste so that your tongue and brain think the "bad food" tastes well.
It is astonishing how much "lets try this" gets rejected as "tastes awful" when you are "trained wrong".
Re:lies (Score:5, Insightful)
China is also very well known for lying about things and faking stats to appear better than everyone else. It goes all the way from the local level with fake recycling bins that go straight to trash pickup to faking national statistics.
It's easier to focus on that reassurance rather than the decline in U.S. healthy life expectancy since 2014.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
"These experiments show that when people's beliefs are threatened, they often take flight to a land where facts do not matter."
Sadly, this may be a case of just having to accept some unpalatable news.
What would be interesting is the "why?" which sadly the article is a little thin on. Perhaps there will be more analysis to follow.
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My guess would be that the Chinese have a better diet. They have not transitioned to a "western" high fat diet yet. These numbers could change if children born in 2018 grow up to eat a western diet.
There are a lot of McDonalds' in China...
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Have you ever lived in China? Western "high fat" diet? I think you mean Western "high carb" diet. Chinese diets are filled with both, however: tons of rice and oil. Chinese likely eat significantly less animal fats than in the USA, but the food in China is full of fat (as food should be). Also, even with all the rice, a lack of eating processed foods likely means the Chinese still eat significantly fewer carbs as calories than in the USA.
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A little bit of sugar can make flavors develop (try making tomato sauce or soup with and without a pinch of sugar and compare).
Perhaps the manufacturers take that idea to the extremes and use cheap sugar in their products in order to reduce quantity/quality of other ingredients?*
(* hint: yes, yes they do)
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The "why" is the obesity epidemic. Basically, we reached the point where the country is so wealthy that even poor people are morbidly obese (and, in fact, more likely to be so) which leads to earlier death.
As has been pointed out time and time again, the US also counts every single live birth toward its statistics of life expectancy. Other countries have different standards, and newborns who don't live for at least a few days might not be counted. Adding in what is essentially "0" to your average tends t
comparing US to US though... (Score:2)
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Even when not factoring in embellished figures you should to remember that outside of extreme examples (like Spurlock's McDiet) unhealthy lifestyles take time to really catch up with you and Chinese people have only bee
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China is also very well known for lying about things and faking stats to appear better than everyone else.
So is Trump. (just sayin')
USA #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
How does this sit with the USA #1 crowd? I like to read those OECD comparison charts and it seems the US has been continually falling over the last few decades across every type of political leadership. Can this be fixed?
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Per 100,000 the USA is #1 in
Military spending
Health costs
Prison population
And giving to charities.
Everything else its rarely in the top 10 and is often lower than 20th.
Re:USA #1 (Score:4, Interesting)
How does this sit with the USA #1 crowd?
We are still #1 in watching TV! Eight hours a day for every average household! So it doesn't matter if we die earlier . . . we will still be #1 in total hours of TV watched in our lifetimes! China can't compete with our TV viewing . . . they are too busy doing healthy things, like riding their bikes to work, and doing Tai Chi outside in the park in the fresh air at the crack of dawn.
Whoever has watched the most TV in their lifetime when they die . . . wins!
USA! Watch TV! USA! Watch TV!
I like to read those OECD comparison charts and it seems the US has been continually falling over the last few decades across every type of political leadership. Can this be fixed?
The correct question is:
Could this be fixed?
The Clinton Political-Military-Industrial-Complex-Machine still has too much influence in the Democratic Party. The Democrats need to purge all those Clinton Loyalists still in party leadership positions. Hillary will try to get Chelsea a free ride into the Senate, with her own trick:
Pick a heavily Democratic state where a Senator is about to die or retire. Chelsea moves there and professes that she was always a loyal resident of that state. When the Democrat Senator dies or retires, run Chelsea in the primary. Use the Clinton Political-Military-Industrial-Complex-Machine to Whack-A-Mole any other Democratic challengers.
The Democrats can not let that happen . . . it will lead to further Clinton stagnation in the party. They desperately need fresh blood and new ideas.
Oh, and get rid of those "Super Delegates" . . . even the name is offensive:
"You are just a delegate. But I am a super delegate" The whole thing is elitist and undemocratic.
For the Republican Party, the process is easier. Ask every Republican leader if they honestly like Ajit Pai. Get rid of every one who answers "Yes". This shows that they care more about the interests of Big Business, and not about the interests of Little People.
The Republicans need to carefully cultivate some young potential presidential candidates who and appeal to younger voters, while still holding dear to values that the older Republican voters' ideals.
So to get back to your original question:
Can this be fixed?
. . . the answer is, Yes, it could be fixed, but No, it probably won't be fixed.
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The Republicans ran a number of young candidates last time. It's the Democrats who look like a nursing home left the door unlocked.
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The Republicans ran a number of young candidates last time. It's the Democrats who look like a nursing home left the door unlocked.
Although, inexperienced, entitled, youngsters with no sense or appreciation of history aren't necessarily better.
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Call the OECD rankings fake news?
The root of many issues in our society is inequality. The solution is wealth-sharing, aka socialism.
The world needs new a socialist revolution. One problem may be that too many equate socialism with communism. younger people seem more likely to support wealth sharing since they have no wealth, but their voting weight is unbalancingly low right now due to the aging population. When those older people stop voting or die off, I suspect things will right themselves off. If it h
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"The United States came 40th in the global rankings"
How does this sit with the USA #1 crowd? I like to read those OECD comparison charts and it seems the US has been continually falling over the last few decades across every type of political leadership. Can this be fixed?
They don't pay attention to FAKE OECD rankings. Fox News doesn't report FAKE NEWS... so they'll never know. To them Europe is a socialist hell hole gripped by constant violence because people dont have guns and aren't shooting people. China is a place where people are poor and starving. South America is all drug lords, Australia rides Kangaroos (yep, every Thursday, come naked), Thais and Filipinos are all prostitutes, mexicans are taking jobs and the Middle east are all towel-headed terrorists.
For the h
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There's still a number of things like friendliness to entrepreneurship, food, culture and gun ownership that they're super proud of, but they're now pretty angry about the state of education and healthcare. They commonly think the sorry s
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Is that a anti-war liberal coming out of hiding after 8 long years?
The hard right is consistently anti-interventionist.
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Just wait until they can afford to eat (Score:3, Interesting)
Just wait until the mass of Chinese can afford to eat 3 meals a day. Then we'll see what the stats say.
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Just wait until the mass of Chinese can afford to eat 3 meals a day. Then we'll see what the stats say.
I know you're joking, but...
Chinese people usually eat more than 3 meals a day, they tend to eat smaller meals less often than Gwailo.
Food isn't a big issue in china, they've been feeding their people quite well now for a while (hence Chinese are getting taller). The problem is luxuries, it's a communist country with a rising middle class, so the middle class are wanting more luxuries, cars, clothing, electronics and brands.
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The hard truth (Score:5, Interesting)
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On the other hand I most certainly wouldn't lay anything even close to full responsibility on the U.S healthcare system considering all the other things that are wrong in U.S
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for profit capitalistic health care isn't working
The best healthcare in the world doesn't help people who dedicate their lives to ensuring they will be wholly dependent on it through eating nothing but shit and only ever moving in order to get the next meal.
I like heaping on USA's healthcare system as much as the next gobsmacked international observer, but the reality is American life expectancy is despite of the healthcare, not because of it.
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America is just starting ... (Score:2)
... to excel at a much more coveted metric -- profits -- as she continues to deregulate fossil fuel and emission standards.
In support of the prime directive of asymptotic wealth gained in nanoseconds, Americans will die rich.
The age at which that happens is not important.
This will never be fixed in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
You basically have a choice to return shareholder value or save lives but you certainly cannot have both. It's really simple to understand because if you run it for profit it becomes unaffordable for the poor. That is why we pay more for heathcare then anybody else in the world.
We have made our choice here to keep raking in profits over saving lives here so this problem is not going to get better in the near future.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Looking at my retirement funds, I'm certainly hoping I die in my sleep at age 78. Or maybe 75. I just can't be sure.
You're one of the lucky ones, many people wonder if they will be able to retire by the age of 75 or 78
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I'm a "software developer" and martial arts teacher, it is still an open bet on/in which profession I retire first.
Hospitals in China... (Score:2)
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Seems you are an idiot:
"A hospital scene from the movie Jacob's Ladder, the movie that inspired Konami's Silent Hill series."
What has that to do with hospitals in China?
I smell so much BS (Score:2)
Pull the other one.
The amount of propaganda coming our way is nauseating.
My anectode (Score:2)
I went 2 weeks in China last year, and I lost 3 kg (6 pounds). Last time I went to the US, I think I gained 2 kg in also 2 weeks, with a similar holiday life style.
The explanation for the difference ? My guess is the sugar; in China, you find very little sugar in food.
I find the W.H.O. to be rather questionable (Score:2)
Newsflash! Classic asian diet healthier than ... (Score:2)
... US standard Fast Food Fare.
In other news:
Society that regards Kung Fu Masters higher in status than lawyers healthier than fat-ass society that loves sitting at desks and has a quota of morbidly obese through the effing roof.
Yet in other news:
Rice and Soy Sauce healthier than Hamburgers, Fries & Ketchup.
Insights brought to you by Captain Obvious Research Institute.
Missing link (Score:2)
List of countries by life expectancy [wikipedia.org]
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he is a terrible "president", worst ever. this is a well-known fact. and in the top 20 worst, perhaps, globally, in the entire history of this planet.
it is his party who is to blame, and as the president is considered the 'leader' of his or her party (steers policy and platform, is expected to be the standard-bearer, etc), it is by extension, the twit's fault as well. so congratulations. you were correct, simply amazing for a trumpette moron such as yourself.
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Why? Are the Democrats going to promote healthy lifestyle choices? Get rid of the high-carb low-fat diet recommendations that are killing Americans? Break up the medical monopolies and drug cartels to drop the cost of health care by 80% or more?
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The economy is doing great, job numbers are better than ever for many
Mostly due to all the hard work put in by the previous administration (who had to start right after the banking disaster/collapse that GWBush failed to prevent).
Or maybe you think Trump managed to turn it all around in a couple of weeks? LOL!
Question: How's the swamp-draining coming along? That's the single most important thing that he could do to help safeguard the future economy of the USA - prevent more gaming of the system (and subsequent collapses).
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You don't know anything about swamps. Swamp experts say you have to flush out the old swamp with the new swamp before trying to drain it. We will have the best swamps, let me tell you. Swamping, swamping, swamp USA!
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The economy is doing great, job numbers are better than ever for many
Mostly due to all the hard work put in by the previous administration (who had to start right after the banking disaster/collapse that GWBush failed to prevent).
Or maybe you think Trump managed to turn it all around in a couple of weeks? LOL!
Oh dear.
Must history repeat itself?
Reagan "was" both an idiot and evil mastermind, somehow. And magically his successes were all due to Carter, er, somehow ...
I've lived through this all before.
Re:Trump's fault obviously (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it didn't. It took TWO YEARS for the Dow to go up from 19,827 to 25,075. It took from the day before Trump's inauguration day to the second anniversary of his inauguration day. As you say, it was a rise of 26 percent.
Did you know that over the exact corresponding period of time, from the day before his inauguration to the second anniversary of his inauguration, Under Obama the Dow went up 33 PERCENT? In fact, if you check the Dow on March 9, 2009 at the very depth of the Great Recession, you will notice that by the second anniversary of Obama's term the Dow rose an astonishing 61 percent.
No, it does not. It's well over 1000 points off its high. Also, did you know that the Dow resided in "record territory" for the entire second term of Barack Obama's presidency?
[Note: I am figuring out where the Trump supporters are getting this myth that the the Dow rose 26% in two days after Trump's inauguration. It is from a misreading of the big, wet baby's own tweet. The only problem is, in Trumpistan they get every single fact wrong, including the day the tweet was issued. see below]
https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]
And here, you can look at the Dow history yourself to check for yourself.
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https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Re:Trump's fault obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
You are out of touch with reality. The Dow shot up from 19,827.3 to 25,075.1 -- an increase of *26 percent* the day of (or day after) Trump's inauguration.
It is you who is out of touch with reality. When reality set in after one year of the the Trump presidency, the Dow promptly fell by 9% [yahoo.com]. The 2017 runnup was the holdover from the golden years of Obama's 2nd term (which did not include any global financial crisis caused by Republicans dismantling regulations). Then the reality of the Trump presidency set in, did I mention that?
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Trump was largely expected to remove government minders from business activity in conjunction with a massive reduction in corporate tax rate. This principally caused the market to become significantly overheated. As any investor with even moderate experience can tell you, a rapid rise is surely followed by a rapid descent otherwise known as "going parabolic". [stockcharts.com] We experienced a taste of the descent already with a reversal in prices down to November levels. Currently institutional investors are busy sellin
Re:Trump's fault obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
At least he kept two-faced Hillary out of the White House.
Sure, the cancer is bad, but at least I didn't get the flu!
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We all miss those glory days, brother.
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The recent decline in this particular lie/statistic is due entirely to the spike in drug overdose deaths attributable to people being dumb enough to mix Fentanyl with their heroin.
The old quote attributed to Disraeli and Clemens really is true.
Any number in the absence of context is just nonsense to push a narrative. In this case it's just anti-American hatred plus some of the other usual suspects.
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If the US health system were capitalistic, with producers open to competition in the global market and consumers free to form buying associations of whatever kind they wanted and buy from wherever they wanted, we would be much better off. Instead, we have this interlocking cartel of medieval guilds whose goal is to maximize the number of doubloons extracted from the peasants.
Meanwhile, in 2003 and in 2013 China made ground-up reforms to its medical regulatory system. Could we be seeing the first effects of
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It is capitalistic, just late stage capitalistic where monopolies, cartels and other middlemen arise to funnel money to themselves, often by buying rules from the government.
Capitalism rewards efficiency and it is not efficient competing.
What is really needed is a free market, something capitalists hate and work against as it is not profitable.
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You can't impose a monopoly in an open-market economy unless you do something like buy up a region's sewer system (hence our special treatment of networked utilities). You have to do what medical providers do - convince lawmakers to pass laws forcing consumers to buy under the terms you dictate.
This is the fundamental difference between the medical industry and the electronics industry.
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Yes, it is more efficient to buy laws/regulations then to actually compete on a level playing field and the medical industry is well aware of this.
Re:US capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a "free market", especially when it comes to health care.
If a doctor tells you you're going to need heart surgery, or your kid needs cancer treatment, you're not going to shop around for the best price. If lung is punctured in a car accident and you're bleeding internally, you're not going to shop for the least expensive alternative to an ambulance to take you to the hospital.
There is no free market alternative for health care.
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What you mean is that the health care system will always include a charity and governmental sector for indigents, people who have paid into pension systems, and those with catastrophic conditions.
All of these groups, and the private insurance companies that serve the middle class, would be helped by:
1. Being able to negotiate as a group for contracted rates on services, as private insurance does;
2. Being able to buy drugs in bulk, and on the world market, just as we buy processors and RAM;
3. Being able to a
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If you include "private insurance companies" in the health care discussion, you've already gone well beyond anything like a "free market", because the consumer of health care is no longer the customer of the health care provider.
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Observation of healthcare worldwide over a 50 year period teaches us that the best "buyer clubs" for health care are run at the national level.
There has never been a successful profit-based "free market" health care system anywhere in the world.
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In 1840, almost every hospital was non-profit. And the vast majority of health care in the US was not provided by hospitals or doctors. Sick people relied mostly on home remedies, midwives, local folk healers, or in the case of African Americans, the obeah or conjurer.
Here's an interesting little blurb about US health care in the 1800s that you might find interesting. Remember, this is an era that you're pointing to as a mod
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You would if providers were required to publish up-front the prices for those services (regardless of means of payment).
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No, you wouldn't. If your kid is hurt in a rollover accident, you're not going to have the ambulance wait while you google which trauma center has the best price on chest intubations.
There is a reason that "free market", profit-based health care has never worked anywhere in the world.
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1) The ability for all participants to enter, leave, or participate in the market as they choose.
2) Participants must have symmetrical knowledge of the goods and/or services being provided.
3) Barriers to entry in the market must be sufficiently low that true competitors can arise if existing providers don't meet demand.
4) All participants must be rational actors.
5) The same product or service must be available from multiple sour
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I don't think you know any actual poor people. You are just repeating other people's bullshit like little old ladies reposting chain letters from email.
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He has a point.
Culture and genetics contributes a lot to these kinds of numbers. There are pockets of people in a number of places who have a various lifestyles that regularly live past 100.
Some of the more targeted statistics clearly have a strong cultural component.