11 ms·

Why did 250k Britons die sooner than expected?

103 points by SirLJ 4y ago

specproc 4y ago
I think anyone with a passing understanding of the UK could see the answer coming a mile off. This is the inevitable result of the brutal austerity programme pushed through by the Cameron government. It's hard for me to see Brexit outside of this context as well. What riles me about this piece is that the Economist was championing these exact policies at the time. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/10/21/ouch https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/10/21/ouch Everyone these days loves to hate on the spivs and chancers that emerged from this mess, but it's people like Cameron and Osborne who got us here.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Is the answer ever poor expectations for deliberate policy choices?
was_a_dev 4y ago
It is well-known that the austerity ushered in by Cameron's new Conservative goverment heavily contributed to excess deaths. After a decade of continued underfunding of public services, leading to a collapsed social and health service, you realise the question really isn't that deep
- krysp 4y ago
  Well known anecdotally perhaps, but this is the first time I've seen a major publication link the two issues (possibly I don't read enough of the news). Hopefully we see more like this.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Some of the media coverage: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/austerity-thousands-deaths-study-researchers-b1938504.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/austerity-thousand... Some of the research: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21490/1/‘Dead%20people%20don't%20claim’%20a%20psychopolitical%20autopsy%20of%20UK%20austerity%20suicides.pdf https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21490/1/‘Dead%20peop... https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/10/e046417 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/10/e046417 There's a mountain of evidence that the policies were democidally harmful and economically counterproductive. Although they did increase financial inequality - which some people seem to consider a good thing rather than a bad one.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Financial Times called it out recently too, in surprisingly clear terms: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 > Britain’s grim winter of strikes, falling incomes and a worsening NHS crisis is not some unfortunate series of events > It’s the inevitable result of a decade of Tory austerity that steadily weakened the state’s capacity to respond to shocks
    - captaincaveman 4y ago
      Assuming this is true, wasn't it the bailing out of the banks a major factor in the need for austerity?
- 6510 4y ago
  > the five local authorities with the highest average life expectancy can expect to live 83.6 years, which is nearly 10 years longer than the 73.9 average in the five councils with lowest life expectancy at birth. https://www.theactuary.com/news/2022/08/24/uk-house-prices-six-times-higher-areas-where-life-expectancy-greatest https://www.theactuary.com/news/2022/08/24/uk-house-prices-s... The average age in the UK is lower than the EU.
- hellojimbo 4y ago
  The good thing about trading the livelihood of future generations for the livelihood of the current generation through reckless spending is that the future generation doesn't get a vote.
- treeman79 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - was_a_dev 4y ago
    Oh dear
- wyager 4y ago
  It is well known that the marginally insignificant political differences of the people I disagree with actually lead to billions of deaths every year
- steve76 4y ago
  [dead]
- 0xy 4y ago
  Austerity like NHS spending increasing by 6.5% yearly since 2010? Absolutely absurd argument made from political propaganda, not fact. Not only has it increased in raw numbers, it's increased per capita, making this argument false by any measurement.
  - was_a_dev 4y ago
    There is a difference between defunding and underfunding. It doesn't take much to realise ~6% (average) increase is quickly eroded by inflation and population changes. NHS funding has been effectivley stagnant [1] There are also more complex issues beyond a single percentage metric. But I am sure you know that [1] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-and-future-of-government-spending-on-the-nhs https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...
    - 0xy 4y ago
      Your original post said NHS budgets were undergoing austerity -- meaning spending cuts. Now that that's been shown to be utterly false, your terminology has evolved to "stagnant". NHS funding increases are over 2,000% higher than France, a comparable first-world country, since 2010 -- according to World Bank data. If the UK has "stagnant" spending increases, what's happening in comparable countries with way less spending increases? France has 0.3%/year healthcare spending increases in that period. 6.5% is not stagnant. It's not austerity. In fact, it's OVER DOUBLE the rate of inflation, contrary to your claims of "erosion by inflation". NHS funding is skyrocketing in real terms and in per capita amounts, over and above inflation. To claim spending increases are eroded by either inflation or population changes is a lie. It's rising per capita at over 2x inflation. Zero erosion, except perhaps in the fever dreams of The Guardian journalists.
0xDEF 4y ago
Strange that the article doesn't mention Brexit. Many nurses (and doctors) in the UK used to be from EU countries.
- bluepizza 4y ago
  The article doesn't mention it because the trend began way before Brexit was concluded.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Before Brexit was concluded, a lot of EU citizens in the UK started leaving. Why wait until the turmoil kicks you out when you can be proactive. Just like people start interviewing for a new job before the old company finishes going bankrupt.
    - bluepizza 4y ago
      The trend started 3 years before the vote happened.
- krysp 4y ago
  The effect mentioned started before Brexit, so the link has to be with something else - in the article's conclusion it's a related Tory problem, austerity
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    this is true, but the tory nonsense has exacerbated it. i (in uk) have a commercial carer (not nhs; i am bedbound) from lithuania (or estonia, or latvia - she keeps telling me & i keep forgetting) who is lovely, smart and kind. her only failing is that she can't cook, but that gives me an interest - last week i taught her how to do scrambled eggs on toast! we need more people like this in the uk, not fewer. but our vile government will never get a clue.
  - krona 4y ago
    "I'm afraid there is no money." - chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown
actuator 4y ago
A bit offtopic, but does anyone who has worked with media organisations in the past know, how much an individual developer time is spent in creating an interactive feature report like this? Also, are there publishing tools that allow creation by something like drag and drop in the CMS or is it often custom frontend code?
- coeneedell 4y ago
  My understanding is that these places slowly accumulate their own libraries for some semi-automated framework (like svelte for example, though I don’t think this is svelte). This knowledge comes from my working in a media watchdog, and my own analysis of the New York Times’ code so the economist may be different. I also (obviously) don’t have first class access to these things only what we’ve been able to probe using osint tools and analyzing the javascript/html/css.
  - actuator 4y ago
    Ah, thanks for the insight. That would make sense, I will try to probe around more to see if it is possible to make them more accessible to other media publications as well.
- mbo 4y ago
  The Australian public broadcaster open sources all its infrastructure for their interactive features: https://github.com/abcnews https://github.com/abcnews It's all very bespoke.
  - actuator 4y ago
    Thanks. Will take a look.
krysp 4y ago
As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia for when we were more important in the world seem to be holding us back.
- actuator 4y ago
  I am not sure how in a totally integrated free market world, a country like UK can compete with US or China. The amount of funding US can put into new areas like green energy and the internal market and capital it offers is something UK can't compete with. This is why UK origin founders are one of the biggest cohort of immigrant unicorn founders in US. Although, I am not sure where a Brit would move to, if they want to have similar social systems. Most of the EU also seems on the path to decline as well. Also, unlike say a German or a French expat, a British expat would have little problem moving to US, Canada, Australia or NZ as there is little language or culture barrier, so if those countries do well, why won't a skilled Brit just moved there.
  - epicureanideal 4y ago
    Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even small, resource-poor countries can punch far above their weight. The UK remains a sufficient economy to serve as a foundation to rise significantly above its current situation. Imagine a UK with a $150,000 USD average income, thanks to intensive investment for a generation. If that sounds unrealistic, so would our current level of average incomes to people living in 1900. Somehow we've just lost the belief that we can continue to dramatically increase our quality of life. Between its nuclear deterrent and soft power, the UK could remain a global power for at least the next couple of centuries if it chose to do so. I wonder what the electoral interest would be in a UK political party that advocated the goal of doubling the nation's per capita income in 10 years?
freitzkriesler2 4y ago
I've been seeing reports of this across several different countries and various reasons are always given for the cause. However, they are always grasping at straws. I wonder what the common similarity that each of these deaths has over the past 3 years.
roca 4y ago
The "problem" here is only that life expectancy has not continued to increase at the rate it was increasing up to around 2010. I see no reason to assume that life expectancy would continue to increase indefinitely at a linear rate. Most interventions that increase life expectancy (e.g. mitigating major causes of non-age-related death) are subject to diminishing returns.
- adjav 4y ago
  Britain did significantly worse than it's peer nations in that decline, though. Clearly the rate doesn't have to be this low.
londons_explore 4y ago
In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.
- yeuxardents 4y ago
  How does something like that even happen...? All I can consider is the relatively small size of the UK, and how one can drive from one side of the other in the UK in just 15 or so hours...
  - markdown 4y ago
    Concerted efforts by the Tories over decades to defund public health so that they can raise a generation of people who sincerely believe that it's best for the country for the government to get out of Healthcare and leave that to the more efficient private sector. It's a very slow process that requires first the defunding, then some brainwashing via television. The American model.
    - nradov 4y ago
      The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
      - stuaxo 4y ago
        At the same time getting rid of the nurses bursary that helped new nurses get trained. Salaries not increasing with inflation. Staff finding it harder to stay in the UK after Brexit. Closure of many hospitals, a gradual move (including the previous gov) to many more privatised services. All these things have increased costs without improving the service.
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.ph/FR0eY https://archive.ph/FR0eY
0xy 4y ago
The UK's doctors and nurses are essentially slaves compared to their US counterparts. They make a quarter of the pay or less for equivalent work. When your healthcare strategy is "just employ slaves so we can have free healthcare" of course people will die.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Alternatively, I don't understand why we don't have more doctors in the US and drive down prices. I mean, I understand why the AMA wants that, but doctor-work doesn't seem that hard and I have no idea why they need to make mid-six figures. I could be very wrong, of course, but it seems like most people I went to school with are capable of most doctor work.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    If I'm not mistaken medical degrees in the US are postgraduate (in the UK it's undergraduate, albeit it takes more years than is typical), which increases the cost of training of a doctor (both tuition and "opportunity cost"). If you studied for 8+ years in university to become a doctor, the prospects of working as a "slave" on low salary is really unappealing.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      Working as a doctor, even at a lower wage, isn't anything like being a slave. And yes, it probably means dropping the education requirements somewhat. People don't need to take that long after graduation to order some tests and prescribe some antibiotics.
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
    > I understand why the AMA wants that Did you leave a "not" out of this part?
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      Probably. I mean the AMA wants there to be few but very highly paid doctors.
qwertyuiop_ 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
pasabagi 4y ago
It's interesting that you can see the one area where the UK welfare state still exists (the 70+ bracket, e.g. pensions), the UK mortality rate has kept a pretty close track to the EU average.

103 points by SirLJ 4y ago

I think anyone with a passing understanding of the UK could see the answer coming a mile off. This is the inevitable result of the brutal austerity programme pushed through by the Cameron government. It's hard for me to see Brexit outside of this context as well. What riles me about this piece is that the Economist was championing these exact policies at the time. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/10/21/ouch https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/10/21/ouch Everyone these days loves to hate on the spivs and chancers that emerged from this mess, but it's people like Cameron and Osborne who got us here.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Is the answer ever poor expectations for deliberate policy choices?

was_a_dev 4y ago

It is well-known that the austerity ushered in by Cameron's new Conservative goverment heavily contributed to excess deaths. After a decade of continued underfunding of public services, leading to a collapsed social and health service, you realise the question really isn't that deep

krysp 4y ago
Well known anecdotally perhaps, but this is the first time I've seen a major publication link the two issues (possibly I don't read enough of the news). Hopefully we see more like this.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Some of the media coverage: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000-excess-deaths-in-great-britain-linked-to-austerity-finds-study https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/05/over-330000... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/austerity-thousands-deaths-study-researchers-b1938504.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/austerity-thousand... Some of the research: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21490/1/‘Dead%20people%20don't%20claim’%20a%20psychopolitical%20autopsy%20of%20UK%20austerity%20suicides.pdf https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21490/1/‘Dead%20peop... https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/10/e046417 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/10/e046417 There's a mountain of evidence that the policies were democidally harmful and economically counterproductive. Although they did increase financial inequality - which some people seem to consider a good thing rather than a bad one.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Financial Times called it out recently too, in surprisingly clear terms: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223922474627073 > Britain’s grim winter of strikes, falling incomes and a worsening NHS crisis is not some unfortunate series of events > It’s the inevitable result of a decade of Tory austerity that steadily weakened the state’s capacity to respond to shocks
  - captaincaveman 4y ago
    Assuming this is true, wasn't it the bailing out of the banks a major factor in the need for austerity?
6510 4y ago
> the five local authorities with the highest average life expectancy can expect to live 83.6 years, which is nearly 10 years longer than the 73.9 average in the five councils with lowest life expectancy at birth. https://www.theactuary.com/news/2022/08/24/uk-house-prices-six-times-higher-areas-where-life-expectancy-greatest https://www.theactuary.com/news/2022/08/24/uk-house-prices-s... The average age in the UK is lower than the EU.
hellojimbo 4y ago
The good thing about trading the livelihood of future generations for the livelihood of the current generation through reckless spending is that the future generation doesn't get a vote.
treeman79 4y ago
[flagged]
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  Oh dear
wyager 4y ago
It is well known that the marginally insignificant political differences of the people I disagree with actually lead to billions of deaths every year
steve76 4y ago
[dead]
0xy 4y ago
Austerity like NHS spending increasing by 6.5% yearly since 2010? Absolutely absurd argument made from political propaganda, not fact. Not only has it increased in raw numbers, it's increased per capita, making this argument false by any measurement.
- was_a_dev 4y ago
  There is a difference between defunding and underfunding. It doesn't take much to realise ~6% (average) increase is quickly eroded by inflation and population changes. NHS funding has been effectivley stagnant [1] There are also more complex issues beyond a single percentage metric. But I am sure you know that [1] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-and-future-of-government-spending-on-the-nhs https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...
  - 0xy 4y ago
    Your original post said NHS budgets were undergoing austerity -- meaning spending cuts. Now that that's been shown to be utterly false, your terminology has evolved to "stagnant". NHS funding increases are over 2,000% higher than France, a comparable first-world country, since 2010 -- according to World Bank data. If the UK has "stagnant" spending increases, what's happening in comparable countries with way less spending increases? France has 0.3%/year healthcare spending increases in that period. 6.5% is not stagnant. It's not austerity. In fact, it's OVER DOUBLE the rate of inflation, contrary to your claims of "erosion by inflation". NHS funding is skyrocketing in real terms and in per capita amounts, over and above inflation. To claim spending increases are eroded by either inflation or population changes is a lie. It's rising per capita at over 2x inflation. Zero erosion, except perhaps in the fever dreams of The Guardian journalists.

0xDEF 4y ago

Strange that the article doesn't mention Brexit. Many nurses (and doctors) in the UK used to be from EU countries.

bluepizza 4y ago
The article doesn't mention it because the trend began way before Brexit was concluded.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Before Brexit was concluded, a lot of EU citizens in the UK started leaving. Why wait until the turmoil kicks you out when you can be proactive. Just like people start interviewing for a new job before the old company finishes going bankrupt.
  - bluepizza 4y ago
    The trend started 3 years before the vote happened.
krysp 4y ago
The effect mentioned started before Brexit, so the link has to be with something else - in the article's conclusion it's a related Tory problem, austerity
- zabzonk 4y ago
  this is true, but the tory nonsense has exacerbated it. i (in uk) have a commercial carer (not nhs; i am bedbound) from lithuania (or estonia, or latvia - she keeps telling me & i keep forgetting) who is lovely, smart and kind. her only failing is that she can't cook, but that gives me an interest - last week i taught her how to do scrambled eggs on toast! we need more people like this in the uk, not fewer. but our vile government will never get a clue.
- krona 4y ago
  "I'm afraid there is no money." - chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown

actuator 4y ago

A bit offtopic, but does anyone who has worked with media organisations in the past know, how much an individual developer time is spent in creating an interactive feature report like this? Also, are there publishing tools that allow creation by something like drag and drop in the CMS or is it often custom frontend code?

coeneedell 4y ago
My understanding is that these places slowly accumulate their own libraries for some semi-automated framework (like svelte for example, though I don’t think this is svelte). This knowledge comes from my working in a media watchdog, and my own analysis of the New York Times’ code so the economist may be different. I also (obviously) don’t have first class access to these things only what we’ve been able to probe using osint tools and analyzing the javascript/html/css.
- actuator 4y ago
  Ah, thanks for the insight. That would make sense, I will try to probe around more to see if it is possible to make them more accessible to other media publications as well.
mbo 4y ago
The Australian public broadcaster open sources all its infrastructure for their interactive features: https://github.com/abcnews https://github.com/abcnews It's all very bespoke.
- actuator 4y ago
  Thanks. Will take a look.

krysp 4y ago

As a Brit I can't help but notice that on every axis, our country appears to be in decline at the moment. Even before Brexit, things hadn't been going well, as this article shows. It's making me seriously consider moving away. I want to have hope that as a country we can turn around this societal regression, but I fear it's a deeper problem than just the current government. The class system and an unhealthy nostalgia for when we were more important in the world seem to be holding us back.

actuator 4y ago
I am not sure how in a totally integrated free market world, a country like UK can compete with US or China. The amount of funding US can put into new areas like green energy and the internal market and capital it offers is something UK can't compete with. This is why UK origin founders are one of the biggest cohort of immigrant unicorn founders in US. Although, I am not sure where a Brit would move to, if they want to have similar social systems. Most of the EU also seems on the path to decline as well. Also, unlike say a German or a French expat, a British expat would have little problem moving to US, Canada, Australia or NZ as there is little language or culture barrier, so if those countries do well, why won't a skilled Brit just moved there.
- epicureanideal 4y ago
  Taiwan, South Korea, and Israel all have much lower populations than the UK and yet remain important global influencers. It isn't all about population. The USA has 1/4 the population of China and yet technologically is a peer competitor. Japan had less than 1/2 the population of the USA in the 1980s and was a technological peer competitor. With wise investment in capital equipment, education, and technology, even small, resource-poor countries can punch far above their weight. The UK remains a sufficient economy to serve as a foundation to rise significantly above its current situation. Imagine a UK with a $150,000 USD average income, thanks to intensive investment for a generation. If that sounds unrealistic, so would our current level of average incomes to people living in 1900. Somehow we've just lost the belief that we can continue to dramatically increase our quality of life. Between its nuclear deterrent and soft power, the UK could remain a global power for at least the next couple of centuries if it chose to do so. I wonder what the electoral interest would be in a UK political party that advocated the goal of doubling the nation's per capita income in 10 years?

freitzkriesler2 4y ago

I've been seeing reports of this across several different countries and various reasons are always given for the cause. However, they are always grasping at straws. I wonder what the common similarity that each of these deaths has over the past 3 years.

roca 4y ago

The "problem" here is only that life expectancy has not continued to increase at the rate it was increasing up to around 2010. I see no reason to assume that life expectancy would continue to increase indefinitely at a linear rate. Most interventions that increase life expectancy (e.g. mitigating major causes of non-age-related death) are subject to diminishing returns.

adjav 4y ago
Britain did significantly worse than it's peer nations in that decline, though. Clearly the rate doesn't have to be this low.

londons_explore 4y ago

In my district in the UK, there were occasions when average wait times for an ambulance for a Category 1 incident (eg. person not breathing) reached 48 hours last month. The target is 90% of patients reached in 15 minutes. Yet the reality is the average wait was 48 hours. I can't see any way that kind of thing isn't contributing to a shorter life expectancy.

yeuxardents 4y ago
How does something like that even happen...? All I can consider is the relatively small size of the UK, and how one can drive from one side of the other in the UK in just 15 or so hours...
- markdown 4y ago
  Concerted efforts by the Tories over decades to defund public health so that they can raise a generation of people who sincerely believe that it's best for the country for the government to get out of Healthcare and leave that to the more efficient private sector. It's a very slow process that requires first the defunding, then some brainwashing via television. The American model.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The UK NHS budget has been steadily increasing. You can't plausibly claim that the Tories have defunded public health over decades. Some might claim that the funding should have increased at a faster rate, but there are limits to what any society can spend on healthcare. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-...
    - stuaxo 4y ago
      At the same time getting rid of the nurses bursary that helped new nurses get trained. Salaries not increasing with inflation. Staff finding it harder to stay in the UK after Brexit. Closure of many hospitals, a gradual move (including the previous gov) to many more privatised services. All these things have increased costs without improving the service.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/FR0eY https://archive.ph/FR0eY

0xy 4y ago

The UK's doctors and nurses are essentially slaves compared to their US counterparts. They make a quarter of the pay or less for equivalent work. When your healthcare strategy is "just employ slaves so we can have free healthcare" of course people will die.

HWR_14 4y ago
Alternatively, I don't understand why we don't have more doctors in the US and drive down prices. I mean, I understand why the AMA wants that, but doctor-work doesn't seem that hard and I have no idea why they need to make mid-six figures. I could be very wrong, of course, but it seems like most people I went to school with are capable of most doctor work.
- hnfong 4y ago
  If I'm not mistaken medical degrees in the US are postgraduate (in the UK it's undergraduate, albeit it takes more years than is typical), which increases the cost of training of a doctor (both tuition and "opportunity cost"). If you studied for 8+ years in university to become a doctor, the prospects of working as a "slave" on low salary is really unappealing.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Working as a doctor, even at a lower wage, isn't anything like being a slave. And yes, it probably means dropping the education requirements somewhat. People don't need to take that long after graduation to order some tests and prescribe some antibiotics.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
  > I understand why the AMA wants that Did you leave a "not" out of this part?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Probably. I mean the AMA wants there to be few but very highly paid doctors.

qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

pasabagi 4y ago

It's interesting that you can see the one area where the UK welfare state still exists (the 70+ bracket, e.g. pensions), the UK mortality rate has kept a pretty close track to the EU average.