5 ms·

The article says the drop is due to people in their 20s and 30s are dying but why? The article states there is a big increase in overdose deaths but in percenta

by cletus 7y ago

The article says the drop is due to people in their 20s and 30s are dying but why? The article states there is a big increase in overdose deaths but in percentage terms. Is this significant? Are deaths from fentanyl up from 1,000 to 2,000 or 100,000 to 200,000? I also didn't find the word "obesity" anywhere in this article and I have to wonder how much this is a factor too. As much as people might take this as "see how much life is better in [country X]", you still see people desperate to come here. Even in the EU, legal and illegal immigrants are much more likely to be headed to the UK and Germany. I'm Australian but I've now lived in the US coming up on 9 years. The reason? As a software engineer, you can squeeze what would be a lifetime of savings in Australia into 10 years or less and that's hard to ignore. The US is a pretty terrible place to live if you're poor however. And that goes far beyond life expectancy (but it of course plays into it).

foxyv 7y ago
A lot of young adults are graduating and finding zero hope of getting a full time job with benefits. Also they have large amounts of non-dischargeable student loans. In addition if they have any health problems they are no longer on parent's insurance and suffering disproportionately. I'm not surprised to see issues with drug use and suicide bringing down life expectancies. I also don't expect the trend to get much better in the next few years.
- beenBoutIT 7y ago
  The student loans and collections effectively give up when a borrower moves to Europe or leaves the country.
- rayiner 7y ago
  The median student loan payment is $220 per month, for the minority of young people who even have student loans. (Only a third of millennials have any student loans, and the median amount is less than $25,000.) People are killing them selves over a car payments worth of debt? Or are you trying to shoe horn these mortality statistics into a pre-constructed narrative?
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Probably the suicidal people are at the extremes, not the median.
beenBoutIT 7y ago
Actually, if you're poor enough in the US and you live in a state like California you'll qualify for the best free healthcare in the world via Kiaser. Zero copay, pick your own doctors, specialists, eye exams, medication, etc. at zero cost. Then as soon as you get another job and start earning more than $1,400 a month(IIRC) you'll be kicked back into the regular system where no amount of money will ever buy you back into that awesome top tier that you got with the free plan.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  Kaiser is fine for acute issues, or prescription drugs. For chronic issues, you have to yell at them repeatedly to get a decent doctor. I left that mess long ago and never looked back. Insurance is more, but I actually get semi-competent doctors now.
  - disabled 7y ago
    If you have a rare disease, which is common, as 6-7% of the general population has one, you will very likely get profoundly screwed, one way or another, even with the "best" HMO plan. In my case, I have a very rare autoimmune neurological disease that affects my peripheral nervous system. Even being able to properly diagnose the illness, in my particular situation, would be confounding for some of the most talented doctors out there. There is a very unique and esoteric board specialty within the field of neurology that a handful (~40 neurologists in the US currently are board certified in it) of neurologists will have, which makes them more likely to be equipped for dealing with situations like mine. Even then, you may have to see at least a few of them to figure out what is going on, and then figure out the proper treatment--which is more like an art than a science. That is what happened, in my case. Anyways, there is a near-zero chance that an HMO plan has a proper selection of in-network doctors equipped for dealing with rare disease, just in general. So, for all of the praises that HMOs may get, they are structurally unequipped to deal with rare disease in general--and it is actually common to have a rare disease--whether you want to believe it or not. Remember that.
    - LinuxBender 7y ago
Tade0 7y ago
The number of deaths in 2017 was over 70k: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... That's more than traffic fatalities. you still see people desperate to come here. Yes, mostly Mexicans, Chinese and Indians. If I hailed from such a country I would be desperate too.
rhino369 7y ago
It's ~17,000 --> ~70,000 in the last twenty years. Also, since a lot of these deaths happen early, they have a greater impact the life expectancy rate. One person dying 55 years earlier from a heroin OD has the same impact as 11 people dying 5 years earlier.
adventured 7y ago
> The US is a pretty terrible place to live if you're poor however. That's simply not true. The poor in the US have one of the world's most expensive welfare states. It's the next ~20%-25% or so above the bottom 25%, that have it worst. Those people don't get free access to healthcare because they earn too much. The US has a very advanced welfare state and safety net for the poor. The US spends more of its economy on its welfare state than either Canada or Australia, and is in the upper half of the OECD in that regard. The US welfare state is also rapidly growing, whereas most other developed nations are seeing their welfare states shrinking. The US poverty and homelessness rates are both superior to Canada and France. The US provides free healthcare for the bottom 25%, along with countless other massive programs involving food and shelter for the poor.
- riku_iki 7y ago
  It would be interesting to see how nominal numbers will change if you recalculate them to take prices and per capita factors in consideration. What poor in Canada can afford in terms of food, shelter and healthcare, and what poor in US can afford.
- dijit 7y ago
  You talk about absolute costs as if that means much. Surely a conclusion can be reached where you’re spending more than any other country, yet so inefficient at distributing the wealth that you’re spending, or funnelling it into broken feedback loops that keep people in the welfare system. surely if that were the case then it doesn’t matter how much you’re spending in absolute terms, you’d still not be enriching the lives of the poor or helping social mobility.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    US social spending as a percentage of GDP (not absolute amounts) is about 18%, about the same as Canada and Australia, a bit higher than the Netherlands or Switzerland, and a smidge below the OECD average of 20%. https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm

by cletus 7y ago

foxyv 7y ago

A lot of young adults are graduating and finding zero hope of getting a full time job with benefits. Also they have large amounts of non-dischargeable student loans. In addition if they have any health problems they are no longer on parent's insurance and suffering disproportionately. I'm not surprised to see issues with drug use and suicide bringing down life expectancies. I also don't expect the trend to get much better in the next few years.

beenBoutIT 7y ago
The student loans and collections effectively give up when a borrower moves to Europe or leaves the country.
rayiner 7y ago
The median student loan payment is $220 per month, for the minority of young people who even have student loans. (Only a third of millennials have any student loans, and the median amount is less than $25,000.) People are killing them selves over a car payments worth of debt? Or are you trying to shoe horn these mortality statistics into a pre-constructed narrative?
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Probably the suicidal people are at the extremes, not the median.

beenBoutIT 7y ago

Actually, if you're poor enough in the US and you live in a state like California you'll qualify for the best free healthcare in the world via Kiaser. Zero copay, pick your own doctors, specialists, eye exams, medication, etc. at zero cost. Then as soon as you get another job and start earning more than $1,400 a month(IIRC) you'll be kicked back into the regular system where no amount of money will ever buy you back into that awesome top tier that you got with the free plan.

LinuxBender 7y ago
Kaiser is fine for acute issues, or prescription drugs. For chronic issues, you have to yell at them repeatedly to get a decent doctor. I left that mess long ago and never looked back. Insurance is more, but I actually get semi-competent doctors now.
- disabled 7y ago
  If you have a rare disease, which is common, as 6-7% of the general population has one, you will very likely get profoundly screwed, one way or another, even with the "best" HMO plan. In my case, I have a very rare autoimmune neurological disease that affects my peripheral nervous system. Even being able to properly diagnose the illness, in my particular situation, would be confounding for some of the most talented doctors out there. There is a very unique and esoteric board specialty within the field of neurology that a handful (~40 neurologists in the US currently are board certified in it) of neurologists will have, which makes them more likely to be equipped for dealing with situations like mine. Even then, you may have to see at least a few of them to figure out what is going on, and then figure out the proper treatment--which is more like an art than a science. That is what happened, in my case. Anyways, there is a near-zero chance that an HMO plan has a proper selection of in-network doctors equipped for dealing with rare disease, just in general. So, for all of the praises that HMOs may get, they are structurally unequipped to deal with rare disease in general--and it is actually common to have a rare disease--whether you want to believe it or not. Remember that.
  - LinuxBender 7y ago

Tade0 7y ago

The number of deaths in 2017 was over 70k: https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... That's more than traffic fatalities. you still see people desperate to come here. Yes, mostly Mexicans, Chinese and Indians. If I hailed from such a country I would be desperate too.

rhino369 7y ago

It's ~17,000 --> ~70,000 in the last twenty years. Also, since a lot of these deaths happen early, they have a greater impact the life expectancy rate. One person dying 55 years earlier from a heroin OD has the same impact as 11 people dying 5 years earlier.

adventured 7y ago

> The US is a pretty terrible place to live if you're poor however. That's simply not true. The poor in the US have one of the world's most expensive welfare states. It's the next ~20%-25% or so above the bottom 25%, that have it worst. Those people don't get free access to healthcare because they earn too much. The US has a very advanced welfare state and safety net for the poor. The US spends more of its economy on its welfare state than either Canada or Australia, and is in the upper half of the OECD in that regard. The US welfare state is also rapidly growing, whereas most other developed nations are seeing their welfare states shrinking. The US poverty and homelessness rates are both superior to Canada and France. The US provides free healthcare for the bottom 25%, along with countless other massive programs involving food and shelter for the poor.

riku_iki 7y ago
It would be interesting to see how nominal numbers will change if you recalculate them to take prices and per capita factors in consideration. What poor in Canada can afford in terms of food, shelter and healthcare, and what poor in US can afford.
dijit 7y ago
You talk about absolute costs as if that means much. Surely a conclusion can be reached where you’re spending more than any other country, yet so inefficient at distributing the wealth that you’re spending, or funnelling it into broken feedback loops that keep people in the welfare system. surely if that were the case then it doesn’t matter how much you’re spending in absolute terms, you’d still not be enriching the lives of the poor or helping social mobility.
- rayiner 7y ago
  US social spending as a percentage of GDP (not absolute amounts) is about 18%, about the same as Canada and Australia, a bit higher than the Netherlands or Switzerland, and a smidge below the OECD average of 20%. https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/socialexp/social-spending.htm