5 ms·

Having lived in three countries with universal health care, annual checkups is a bit foreign concept. I mean you could ask to get tests whenever you want to, bu

Having lived in three countries with universal health care, annual checkups is a bit foreign concept. I mean you could ask to get tests whenever you want to, but it is not something doctors will recommend. Most people go to the doctor when they experience symptoms. I don't know how to compare these systems, but I guess if we look at life expectancy, similar European countries are doing pretty well.

ALittleLight 3y ago
I think life expectancy is distorted by Americans being fat, driving more, and drug deaths. Probably violence factors in too, but I'm not sure if that's big enough to meaningfully change things.
- lazide 3y ago
  A lot of Europe smokes like a chimney too. Smoking in the US has been dying out very rapidly.
- runarberg 3y ago
  The US health care system fails on many metrics. Life expectancy might be distorted, but all these other metrics paint a pretty clear story of the failure of the US health care system to provide health care to the general population. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35516775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35516775
  - hackeraccount 3y ago
    Healthcare or lack there of is something that kills you when you're 50 or 60. Drugs, suicide, homicide, auto accidents are the kind of things that kill you when you're 20. People dying their 20's skews life expectancy way more then people in the 50's or 60's.
    - runarberg 3y ago
      Some of these metrics take that into account, for example Life expectancy at age 60 in years is still lower in the USA then most other comparable countries. This metric eliminates the potential bias you described by not counting anyone who died before the age of 60. But the point of having a variety of metrics is that other potential biases might be present in some of them, but across all of them, the most likely explanation is a health care system (or health care norms) that work worse compared to health care system in other countries. To summarize, there may be a cultural reason for some of the metrics (say higher drug usage among pregnant people causes higher infant mortality rate), but if you have higher number of preventable deaths, higher treatable mortality rate, uniquely a negative trend in maternal mortality, higher deaths from suicide, etc. etc. than the evidence that this is the fault of health care system instead of culture starts to become overwhelming.
deleted 3y ago
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ResearchCode 3y ago
It's purely a cost issue. Even in those countries, if you're important enough you will have at least an annual check-up.

ALittleLight 3y ago

I think life expectancy is distorted by Americans being fat, driving more, and drug deaths. Probably violence factors in too, but I'm not sure if that's big enough to meaningfully change things.

lazide 3y ago
A lot of Europe smokes like a chimney too. Smoking in the US has been dying out very rapidly.
runarberg 3y ago
The US health care system fails on many metrics. Life expectancy might be distorted, but all these other metrics paint a pretty clear story of the failure of the US health care system to provide health care to the general population. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35516775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35516775
- hackeraccount 3y ago
  Healthcare or lack there of is something that kills you when you're 50 or 60. Drugs, suicide, homicide, auto accidents are the kind of things that kill you when you're 20. People dying their 20's skews life expectancy way more then people in the 50's or 60's.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    Some of these metrics take that into account, for example Life expectancy at age 60 in years is still lower in the USA then most other comparable countries. This metric eliminates the potential bias you described by not counting anyone who died before the age of 60. But the point of having a variety of metrics is that other potential biases might be present in some of them, but across all of them, the most likely explanation is a health care system (or health care norms) that work worse compared to health care system in other countries. To summarize, there may be a cultural reason for some of the metrics (say higher drug usage among pregnant people causes higher infant mortality rate), but if you have higher number of preventable deaths, higher treatable mortality rate, uniquely a negative trend in maternal mortality, higher deaths from suicide, etc. etc. than the evidence that this is the fault of health care system instead of culture starts to become overwhelming.

deleted 3y ago

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ResearchCode 3y ago

It's purely a cost issue. Even in those countries, if you're important enough you will have at least an annual check-up.