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US has lower life expectancy than Poland. It has lower life expectancy than any of the 19 developed nations. It has life expectancy at the level of developing E

US has lower life expectancy than Poland. It has lower life expectancy than any of the 19 developed nations. It has life expectancy at the level of developing Eastern European nations like Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, etc. At the same time US spends the biggest percentage of its GDP on healthcare. More than Germany does, more than France doesm more than UK does, more than Japan does. And people in France and Japan live on average almost 10 years longer than in the US. And then US asks its citizens to pay for coverage extra on top of the taxes out of which 1 dollar out of 10 was spent on healthcare anyway. Now, you tell me why this is such a great system because obviously I must be missing something. Because US as the only country from the list above has free-makret system while the others are 100% taxation sponsored, a.k.a. free. Tell me. Dying to find out.

robomartin 13y ago
I am not arguing the merits or details of the ACA. That's pointless at this stage of the game. You can go argue that with someone who might be interested. I am not. What I am highlighting here is that, due to the ACA, for the first time our nation is seeing in all it's splendor how things are done in government and how ugly all of it is. Add to this the horrible NSA stuff and other issues and, well, I just can't see how anyone with a true and solid moral and ethical compass could be for more government control of our lives rather than less. I want younger HN'ers to realize that this, exactly this, is how EVERYTHING, in government is done. It is wasteful. Incompetent. Inefficient. Intrusive. And it should scare all of you. Take the US budget and imagine that nearly every program and every line item is executed in exactly this fashion or worst. What do you think we could have done with six hundred million dollars. I am not talking about the ACA. I give you six hundred million dollars to spend --efficiently-- in anything you want. Would you burn it this way? Would you spend it on a pointless war? I would hope not. Only government can pull off something like this and then go on TV and make it sound like they are doing a good job. In the real world people would get fired and a number of them would face fraud and other charges. Again, I don't care about what you want to discuss. For all I know you are absolutely right. I am simply using the parade of insanity marching before us --all sides, all political corners-- to illustrate that for the first time we all get to really see how things work. That's it. It's the only take-away.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  US is number 51 in life expectancy according to CIA Factbook. All the 50 countries that have higher life expectancy have public health care system. Look at it from competitiveness standpoint: your capitalistic approach to the healthcare yields worse results that public one. I mean those are facts. Now, you can obviously come up with all kinds of theories why it is not so, but ignoring this statistic just make you look like someone with a lot of fairy tales to tell. 51. Are you telling me that all those who are better have worse system? Is that right? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryname=United%20States&countrycode=us&regionCode=noa&rank=51#us https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
hga 13y ago
"US has lower life expectancy...." Talking point ignoring: Different countries can have different populations with markedly different health characteristics. That is, "race" in the sense of genetics; in the US, not just African-Americans but plenty of mestizos with a lot of Amerindian genes. Not that I know anything particular about what the latter brings to the table, just that it's sure to be different ... and, heck, the former is a unique population, right?, and neither are in large numbers in any parts of the 1st or formerly 2nd Worlds. Different countries use different methods, e.g. to my knowledge no other country in the world tries to save premature etc. babies as much as we do, and scores failures to do so as deaths. Neonate deaths are a very major factor in overall life expectancy calculations, since so much potential lifetime is lost. Those who are interested in bourgeois truth look at things like life expectancy after being diagnosed with X type of cancer. And even then you have to adjust for different populations. And you compare us to Japan, as genetically homogeneous as you're going to find after they disconnected from the rest of the world and most kept that in modern times??? Please.... Plus plenty of those systems you refer to have free market characteristics, which you weasel with by saying "100% taxation sponsored" ... which I'm not sure really includes any of them but Canada, and they have the obvious fudge---part of their official system, too---of crossing the border. (By that I mean they're the only ones I know of to outlaw private healthcare.)
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Nonsense. Us was #1 in life expectancy. This year it is on place 51. It's not like racial mix-up in the US changed so much since 1960s that you suddenly dropped 50 places. It's been a process. Of course, you might have bright spots here and there. Like premature babies are so common for women after 30s and 40s that sure you have to do something about once women started to work and be pregnant much later in life. It's not like we need it as much in Poland where still majority of pregnancies is for women in their 20s. All I'm saying you are 51 on the list. You may have all kinds of excuses for that, but it's very, very weak.

robomartin 13y ago

I am not arguing the merits or details of the ACA. That's pointless at this stage of the game. You can go argue that with someone who might be interested. I am not. What I am highlighting here is that, due to the ACA, for the first time our nation is seeing in all it's splendor how things are done in government and how ugly all of it is. Add to this the horrible NSA stuff and other issues and, well, I just can't see how anyone with a true and solid moral and ethical compass could be for more government control of our lives rather than less. I want younger HN'ers to realize that this, exactly this, is how EVERYTHING, in government is done. It is wasteful. Incompetent. Inefficient. Intrusive. And it should scare all of you. Take the US budget and imagine that nearly every program and every line item is executed in exactly this fashion or worst. What do you think we could have done with six hundred million dollars. I am not talking about the ACA. I give you six hundred million dollars to spend --efficiently-- in anything you want. Would you burn it this way? Would you spend it on a pointless war? I would hope not. Only government can pull off something like this and then go on TV and make it sound like they are doing a good job. In the real world people would get fired and a number of them would face fraud and other charges. Again, I don't care about what you want to discuss. For all I know you are absolutely right. I am simply using the parade of insanity marching before us --all sides, all political corners-- to illustrate that for the first time we all get to really see how things work. That's it. It's the only take-away.

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
US is number 51 in life expectancy according to CIA Factbook. All the 50 countries that have higher life expectancy have public health care system. Look at it from competitiveness standpoint: your capitalistic approach to the healthcare yields worse results that public one. I mean those are facts. Now, you can obviously come up with all kinds of theories why it is not so, but ignoring this statistic just make you look like someone with a lot of fairy tales to tell. 51. Are you telling me that all those who are better have worse system? Is that right? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryname=United%20States&countrycode=us&regionCode=noa&rank=51#us https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

hga 13y ago

"US has lower life expectancy...." Talking point ignoring: Different countries can have different populations with markedly different health characteristics. That is, "race" in the sense of genetics; in the US, not just African-Americans but plenty of mestizos with a lot of Amerindian genes. Not that I know anything particular about what the latter brings to the table, just that it's sure to be different ... and, heck, the former is a unique population, right?, and neither are in large numbers in any parts of the 1st or formerly 2nd Worlds. Different countries use different methods, e.g. to my knowledge no other country in the world tries to save premature etc. babies as much as we do, and scores failures to do so as deaths. Neonate deaths are a very major factor in overall life expectancy calculations, since so much potential lifetime is lost. Those who are interested in bourgeois truth look at things like life expectancy after being diagnosed with X type of cancer. And even then you have to adjust for different populations. And you compare us to Japan, as genetically homogeneous as you're going to find after they disconnected from the rest of the world and most kept that in modern times??? Please.... Plus plenty of those systems you refer to have free market characteristics, which you weasel with by saying "100% taxation sponsored" ... which I'm not sure really includes any of them but Canada, and they have the obvious fudge---part of their official system, too---of crossing the border. (By that I mean they're the only ones I know of to outlaw private healthcare.)

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
Nonsense. Us was #1 in life expectancy. This year it is on place 51. It's not like racial mix-up in the US changed so much since 1960s that you suddenly dropped 50 places. It's been a process. Of course, you might have bright spots here and there. Like premature babies are so common for women after 30s and 40s that sure you have to do something about once women started to work and be pregnant much later in life. It's not like we need it as much in Poland where still majority of pregnancies is for women in their 20s. All I'm saying you are 51 on the list. You may have all kinds of excuses for that, but it's very, very weak.