I find it alarming that the US wants nothing to do with a system that is deemed the best in the world.

Les Canadiennes sont de plus gentilles personnes !

Sind so nettere Leute der Deutschen!

Canada’s people will keep you warm (compared to USAns)—move now if you have the money. Its only going to get worse.

I sure as hell would if I could. Wouldve done it when Bush stole the election.

Ernesto-I agree with you for sure. Two things keep me from moving 1) I don’t think the women look as good as the lady in the picture from this article and 2) Is there a warm place to live in the winter? Sorry 3) I can’t speak French. Otherwise, Canada is the place for me. The people don’t stress like we Americans, and are actually quite nice. People here have a rough time understanding nice, and if they moved they would have much less to complain about. I’m always been impressed with a country who knows more about my country than most people who live here. I honestly think many people from here would move there if it was warmer and if they could get a better dollar for dollar money exchange. Maybe if Canadian Football was more like the NFL here they might change there mind…Nope I don’t think that would work either.

Ernesto Cadrington,

Shut the fuck up, or we’ll bomb your asses.

Ernesto,

Great points, but I don’t think you’ll find too many people who disagree with you on this site. If only the folks over at Fox News were hearing you…

Ernesto—Please do no think that we are all that ignorant. See, this is what I worry about, peeps—do you know how stupid we look to the civilized world? And we werent real easy on others on our way up.

Like my dad used to say, be careful who you climb on on the way up, because you will have to pass them on your way down. W-A-A-AY down…

voice of truth

Would you care to cite your sources?

The middle class wont really call for anything to change until the insurance industry starts dropping their old and sick like flies.

CaptRun—wish i could afford to move to Germany. Better hurry—in a fews years, the EU will be overrun with US ex-pats.

voice of truth—that stat would be bogus because you have no idea how long those people wouldve lived if they hadnt been shot or gotten in an accident. Which leads us the very question of how ours is a culture of death. The US may have (close to) the best in some cancer care—-but we have steadily gone downhill in recent years while other civilized countries have moved up. But that is only for those that can afford it, which is all you care about.

You should know that statistics can be skewed to say about anything youd like. You do it all the time.

Anyone who thinks that we “have the best health care system in the world” has either never been sick or seriously injured or is rich.

voice of truth
Do you really mean Europe which is made up of about 49 countries including Russia, Ukraine, Moldova etc. and which has a population of 828 million? Or do you mean the EU which is made up of 27 countries with a population of 500 million? Also what about the 50 million Americans who have no insurance at all are they included in your statistics?

Sorry. CDC Link didn’t highlight

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm

VoT:

While a life expectancy rate, by itself, is not a holistic measure of a healthcare system, it is certainly a significant indicator. To believe that removal of unintentional injuries would be statisitically significant, we would have to have those rates from around the world, which we don’t. just as I have done below, the burden of proof for your position is yours.

I argue that the 4 leading causes of death in this country are related to a system of healthcare access that is linked to economic disparity, which plays a signifcant roles in our lagging life expectancy.

Infant Mortality Rate:
http://www.apha.org/publications/tnh/archives/2009/February09/Nation/BabiesNAT.htm

CIA: US #50 Life Expectancy (We beat Albania by 1!)

Defined AS:
“This entry contains the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year, if mortality at each age remains constant in the future. The entry includes total population as well as the male and female components. Life expectancy at birth is also a measure of overall quality of life in a country and summarizes the mortality at all ages. It can also be thought of as indicating the potential return on investment in human capital and is necessary for the calculation of various actuarial measures.”

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

CDC: Life expectancy at birth, at 65 and 75 years of age by race and sex Health, United States 2008, table 26.http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm

Life Expectancy: “Life expectancy is a measure often used to gauge the overall health of a population. As a summary measure of mortality, life expectancy represents the average number of years of life that could be expected if current death rates were to remain constant. Shifts in life expectancy are often used to describe trends in mortality. Life expectancy at birth is strongly influenced by infant and child mortality. Life expectancy later in life reflects death rates at or above a given age and is independent of the effect of mortality at younger ages.”

“The fifth leading cause of death in 2005 was unintentional injuries.”

THE 4 LEADING CAUSES are all healthcare related and treatable: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

-Health Insurance Expenditures:
“Health insurance coverage is an important determinant of access to health care (1). Uninsured children and adults under 65 years of age are substantially less likely to have a usual source of health care or a recent health care visit than their insured counterparts (Tables 78, 79 and 83). Uninsured people are more likely to forego needed health care because they cannot afford it (Table 80).”

Other factors the CDC is tracking, which clearly illustrates an economic link.

-Children living with a single parent “tend to be more financially disadvantaged and to have poorer physical and mental health than children living with two biological parents.”

-Poverty and Low income
-Tobacco Use
-Overweight and Obesity
-Leisure Time Physical Activity and Strength Training
-Acute Viral Hepatitis
-Athsma Among Adults
-Limitation of Activity Due to Chronic Conditions: Children
-Limitation of Activity Due to Chronic
-Conditions: Working-age and Older Adults

US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: Money Section
“The population of the United States is certainly graying. But when it comes to living the longest, the mainland U.S. isn’t even in the top twenty.”

http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2009/03/16/countries-with-the-longest-life-expectancy

While yes, its true that US life expectancy is at an all time high, compared to the rest of the world, we are lagging. I wholly admit, as I posted earlier, that there is more to the healthcare problem than simply going to a doctor. Still, the increasing inability to do so should trouble everyone. Anyone who thinks there isn’t a problem is blind or heartless.

US Life Expectancy, as announced by various Democrats:

Joe Biden - 24th
Ed Rendell - 42nd
Eugene Robinson - 35th
Dennis Kucinich - 47th

Normalizing for ONLY smoking related deaths, which is a lifestyle choice, not a result of having health insurance, would raise U.S. women’s life expectancy from 17th to 7th place and lift American men from 14th to 9th place, according to the WHO.

As for health treatment, which I think is what the author is trying to say sucks here in the us, European men have only a 47.3 percent five-year survival rate, compared to 66.3 percent survival rate for American men. The greatest disparity was in prostate cancer, the most prolific cancer in men, which American men are 28 percent more likely to survive than European men.

European women are only 55.8 percent likely to live five years after contracting any kind of cancer, compared to 62.9 percent for American women.

In every meaningful statistic, the US has by far the most superior health care system in the world.  It is completely disingenious to even attempt to link quality of care with people not having someone to pay their bills, or how long anyone lives in the overall aspects of a country of nearly 300 million people.

No Man, you validated my comment.  The fact that our overall life expectancy, as a nation, is lower than others is specifically because of the reasons you mentioned, i.e., murder, accidents, etc.  When those cases are removed, the US actually has the highest life expectancy.

Therefore you can draw two conclusions.  First, our shorter overall life expectancy is not a result of health care and, secondly, when allowed to live a “full” life, one could say that US health care is actually THE reason for the longevity.

I am not pushing a belief, like your ridiculous Iraq example.  I am simply stating FACTS.

VoT:

Your conclusions would make sense if the same data weren’t gathered in all cases. Car accidents, murders, “untimely deaths” etc., all count against the statistics of the other countries as well. Plus, the fact that we’re a more murderous and unsafe society should also speak volumes, but is apparently acceptible.

This is the same type of smoke and mirrors we saw with Iraq and yet another illustration of how the right engages in false statisitical analysis. According to Brit Hume of FoxNews (2003):

“Two hundred and seventy seven U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, which means that, statistically speaking, U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California…which is roughly the same geographical size. The most recent statistics indicate California has more than 2,300 homicides each year, which means about 6.6 murders each day. Meanwhile, U.S. troops have been in Iraq for 160 days, which means they are incurring about 1.7, including illness and accidents, each day.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95850,00.html

Of course, they failed to mention that California’s death rate was measured against MILLIONS, while at the time we only had 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. Nor did they happen to include the number of Iraqi dead in a country that is “roughly the same geographical size” as California.

Good ol’ Rush “Oxicontin” Limbaugh did the same thing in 2007.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200702020017

It was a cheap attempt to minimize the danger in Iraq, not to mention a slap in face to those who were risking their lives, and being killed or maimed every day.

Your statement about the American health care is no different. It too is a cheap attempt to minimize the impact of the American health care system on people (or the lack thereof). You can choose your opinions, but you don’t get to choose the facts.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics…..

Actually, when normalized for untimely, non-health related deaths, like murder, car accidents, etc., the life expectancy in the US is actually #1 in the world.

I couldn’t agree more. Access to health care will be pivotal in helping Americans live longer lives. I lived in Germany for 3 years and couldn’t help but notice how much healthier they were.

Unfortunately, I think healthcare is only part of the solution, though. For one thing, the food supply in the US is horrid. Right now, $1 buys more in junk food calories than it does in a healthy alternative. So from a purely biological standpoint, we are guranteed higher levels of obesity. Likewise, many Europeans have banned such things as the genetically modified foods that companies like Monsanto (with the rubber stamped help of the FDA) have unleashed on the unsuspecting American public without knowing the full ramifications of what they’ve done. We are seeing explosions in things obesity, diabetes, ADHD, autism at levels never before seen in this country. Not to mention all of the second and third order health effects that go with these very PREVENTABLE types of problems.

One measure of a nation’s helath is to see where they rank in terms of the average height of its people. Poorer nations of the world tend to have very short people which is largely considered a factor of malnurishment during a child’s life. For the last 50 years, Americans were the tallest people in the world. That title was recently supplanted by the Swedish, though.

Finally, Germans simply live healthier lifestyles. Many ride bikes or walk. Their sidewalks are twice the size of ours, with one lane for pedestrians and one lane for bycycles. Nor do they tend to over eat. Even their refrigerators are 1/3 the size of ours. They get ample time off from work and generally live less stressful lives.

Conversely, the American population is not seeing fewer hours in the work week but more. Many holidays are barely recognized anymore, except perhaps in the seasonal candy isles of grocery stores. In short, Europeans are working to live rather than living to work. We are overworked, underpaid, under cared for. We are quickly becoming malnurished and perhaps even poisoned by companies like Monsanto.

We have much that needs to be addressed and universal healthcare is good place to start. But we need to rethink our entire structure. More time off. Subsidies for local, organic farmers. Central market places. Real regulation of the food supply. And, yesm healthcare for all.

Democrats fumbled Health Care Reform from the get-go. Public Option, Single Payer—all we had to do was expand Medicare. No new Bureaucracy and Republicans wouldn’t have attacked an existing and popular system. And how to pay for this expansion of Medicare to cover everyone? Increase the tax rate on the Super Rich and cut the military budget by 10%.

...but perhaps we can learn a thing or two from our pickled cabbage-loving friends.

It’s not just the Germans. It’s all OECD counties we could learn from. All have some form of single-payer system. The figures from a 2009 OECD report are staggering with regard to the amount of money we spend, and the quality and quantity we receive. It is simply unacceptable. It’s placing such a huge strain on the economy, that we won’t be able to compete with even the European Union countries.

Excerpt of OECD report:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf

Even “supply sider” Bruce Bartlett recognizes the problems with our current system as he explains in this July Forbes magazine article:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/health-care-costs-opinions-columnists-reform.html

Unfortunately he falls short of offering any real solutions, but it’s obvious what he’s thinking. It’s doubtful that any Democratic or Republican ideas will have any real effect. I think everybody knows what needs to be done, but nobody is willing to pull the trigger.

Many Americans feel that single-payer just taxes one group of people to give to another. That’s not the case. It is obvious that single-payer takes a huge amount pressure off the economy, to the benefit of all.

France and Sweden rank 9th and 10th on the list of life expectancy. Spain ranks 23rd against Germany’s 32nd. The EU of 27 countries ranks 41st on the list against 50th for the USA. Consequently the US can learn from many countries above all their neighbour Canada which ranks 8th before France. Americans should also seriously tackle the quality and quantity of the food they eat because it has more obese people than any other country.

Could we expect any less in the land of Rosa Luxemburg? Had the Sparticist uprising of 1919 been successful, Germany could have been a socialist republic which would have truly set Europe aflame and put the right-wing deviations of Lenin to shame.

I must admit the young lady pictured is quite the poster person for this story. The beer looks great and she looks to be in very good health. A picture is worth a thousand words and this picture tells me that somebody is settling for the GOP version of the healthcare reform. Although the picture looks great, the words lose their meaning with me, but I might move to Germany if it doesn’t work out here.