Re: [Vo]:OFF TOPIC A friend without health insurance

[Stephen A. Lawrence]

Jeff Fink wrote:
With the system the way it is in the US, if you need an operation for
something you can get it quickly.
  
Hmm... this looks like the old "We pay a lot but we have better care" 
argument.  The United States has, if I recall correctly, the most 
expensive health care system in the world.

Let's cut the chase.  Does this horribly expensive health care actually 
benefit us? How long do people live in the United States live?  Check 
out the Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Wiki lists the life expectancies a couple different ways.   Their first 
list is taken from the "made in the USA" CIA world factbook; it lists 
the United States as #29 in life expectancy among the countries of the 
world.

According to the United Nations list, which they show later on the page, 
the United States ranks #38, just behind Cuba.

Not so hot, eh?

Here's the CIA list, down to and including the United States:

Rank     Country        Life expectancy at birth
----     -------        ------------------------
1        Andorra                83.52
2        Japan                  82.02
3        San Marino             81.8
3        Singapore              81.8
5        Sweden                 80.63
6        Australia              80.62
6        Switzerland            80.62
8        France (metropolitan)  80.59
9        Iceland                80.43
10       Canada                 80.34
11       Italy                  79.94
12       Monaco                 79.82
13       Liechtenstein          79.81
14       Spain                  79.78
14       Norway                 79.78
14       Israel                 79.78
17       Greece                 79.38
18       Austria                79.21
19       Malta                  79.15
20       Netherlands            79.11  
21       Luxembourg             79.03  
22       New Zealand            78.96
23       Germany                78.95  
24       Belgium                78.92  
25       United Kingdom         78.7
26       Finland                78.66  
27       Jordan                 78.55  
28       Bosnia and Herzegovina 78.17
29       United States          78

You can no doubt quibble with some of the numbers, and you can no doubt 
lay a lot of the blame at the door of McDonalds rather than the HMO's, 
but none the less the overall picture is pretty clear:  We're not 
getting what we pay for here.

Incidentally, while a lot of the difference in life expectancies is due 
to heart disease (McDonalds-related deaths) most of the rest is probably 
due to differences in infant mortality. That's another area where, in 
the United States, we pay a fortune and don't get much in return.  
Again, Wiki lists the numbers provided by the U.N. and by the CIA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate_(2005)

I won't reproduce the list here, but I will note that, according to the 
CIA, 42 countries, including Cuba, have lower infant mortality rates 
than the United States.