Reply #13: WE'RE NUMBER 37!! WE'RE NUMBER 37!! WE'RE NUMBER 37!! WE'RE NUMBER 37!!

[warren pease]

Just keep repeating it and maybe it'll eventually lose its sting. But not its effects on the great American death toll.


Overall quality, fairness of access to and effectiveness of medical system -- 37th -- just ahead of that medical nirvana, Slovenia and behind Costa Rica, where there may not be an ATM in every little wide spot in the road, but there's nearly always a medical clinic, open to all, regardless of ability to pay -- UN/World Health Organization summary of a 2000 study comparing the medical systems of 190 countries.

Annual per capita cost of funding medical system -- 1st (around $6,400 then; well over $7,200 today) -- nobody even close -- from a 2005 study comparing health expenditures per capita among 31 countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Preventable deaths per year due solely to lack of medical insurance -- 22,000 -- last -- Urban Institute (2007).

As this guy says, "Not surprisingly, the United States ranks last in preventable deaths compared to 14 Western European nations." Larry Weiss, public health researcher (retired).

Christopher Murray, M.D., Ph.D., Director of WHO's Global Programme on Evidence for Health Policy, offers a more global analysis. "The position of the United States is one of the major surprises of the new rating system," Murray says. "Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you're an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries."

Happily, some are making out like the successful criminals they are. Warms the heart, doesn't it?


Happy happy Friday, ya'lllll.


sf


Edited for clarity, as if such efforts are even necessary on a subject so obviously cut and dried.