Most U.S. Counties Not Living as Long as Other Countries

[groundloop]

Source: ABC News

According to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, over the past decade, life expectancy in the majority of U.S. counties dropped below the life expectancy of people in the 10 nations who live the longest.

"Despite the fact that the U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation on health, eight out of every 10 counties are not keeping pace in terms of health outcomes. That's a staggering statistic," said Dr. Chris Murray, the institute's director.

In 2007, life expectancy across counties ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 and 86 years for women. Between 1987 and 2007, life expectancy increased nationwide from 71.3 years to 75.6 years for men and from 78.4 to 80.8 years for women. Despite the increase, they still lag more than three years below people who live in the 10 longest-living nations, which include Japan, Australia, Singapore and Sweden.

"When we look at what's happened in U.S. counties in the past decade in terms of improving life expectancy and compare it to what is medically possible and what other countries have been able to achieve, we are not keeping up," said Murray.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/people-us-counties-live-long-people-countries/story?id=13838937

---

On page two of the article it is stated that a large contributor to this issue is inadequate access to healthcare. Yes, we've known this for quite some time - but we need to keep putting these facts in front of our right wing friends and relatives.

It's pretty damned sad that the country which spends more per capita on healthcare than any other ranks so low in terms of healthcare results.

[iwishiwas]

1. Med/Pharm/Hospitals need profits to buy off politicians. Its the

American Way of doing business don't cha know!

[osteenq]

2. No surprise...

Constant stress will do that to people.

[Bragi]

3. America is #1 in most types of inequity

When a society is one of the most unequal in the world, and getting more unequal every year, it follows that there will be significant health inequities within the population, and that the health of the bottom 80 per cent (!) will fare poorly even in relation to places that have far less wealth but far less social and economic inequity.

Sigh.

[dotymed]

4. I was sickened when I received my health insurance

invoice. My son had ACL surgery. The surgical facility charged me $28000 for the 3-4 hours he was there.

Because this facility is a "preferred provider" to BC/BS insurance, they "discounted" the charge from almost $28000 to a mere $800.

If I did not have insurance, there would not have been a discount.

The discount for the insurance company was more than 97%.

If I did not have insurance, I would have had to pay $28000 for the few hours my son was there. Instead they charge the for-profit health insurers, 97% less than they do an individual with no insurance.

This is disgusting. It should be the exact opposite.

I did call my insurance company. They assured me this was "correct."

:wtf:

[notesdev]

5. Yup it's a racket

in any other line of business it would be grossly illegal

in the medical field it means you are FORCED into the insurance scheme or you are priced out of health care

And it has nothing to do with the actual cost of providing care, this is all due to the embezzlement schemes that pretend to be insurance companies.

[bemildred]

6. Life expectancy of U.S. women slips in some regions

Reporting from Washington—

Women in large swaths of the U.S. are dying younger than they were a generation ago, reversing nearly a century of progress in public health and underscoring the rising toll of smoking and record obesity.

Nationwide, life expectancy for American men and women has risen over the last two decades, and some U.S. communities still boast life expectancies as long as any in the world, according to newly released data. But over the last decade, the nation has experienced a widening gap between the most and least healthy places to live. In some parts of the United States, men and women are dying younger on average than their counterparts in nations such as Syria, Panama and Vietnam.

Overall, the United States is falling further behind other industrialized nations, many of which have also made greater strides in cutting child mortality and reducing preventable deaths.

In 737 U.S. counties out of more than 3,000, life expectancies for women declined between 1997 and 2007. For life expectancy to decline in a developed nation is rare. Setbacks on this scale have not been seen in the U.S. since the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, according to demographers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-na-womens-health-20110615,0,7351576.story

[nichomachus]

7. But at least we're not socialists

That would be horrible -- all that free health care, better life expectancy, and all that stuff. That would just be unamerican.

[yellowcanine]

8. Goofy title. Counties are people now too? I knew corporations were people according to the SCOTUS.

What's next? Land granted the right to vote, as the Republicans seem to want?

[bemildred]

9. They are trying really hard not to say: "US life expectancy in decline".

Our infant mortality rate has been going up too, and nobody wants to talk about that either.

[yellowcanine]

10. Infant mortality rate......Think that has anything to do with the fetus obsession of the wingnuts?

Get that baby born at all costs, even if its chances of surviving the first week are going to be minimal.

[bemildred]

15. Probably a marginal effect from lack of easy access to abortion in some places.

The real problem is lack of access, and the change of emphasis from health to profit, and truly shitty nutrition.

[indepat]

21. Just think where the US is likely to rank in all quality of life/mortality rankings 10 to 20

years down the road when all the depravity the pubs are hell-bent on inflicting reaches fruition. :shrug: :patriot:

[valerief]

11. That's because we're a sewer now. nt

[bongbong]

12. healthcare

An awful lot of "healthcare" in the "USA! USA! USA!" is really only about keeping the wallets of billionaires healthy.

[CanSocDem]

13. Read...

MEDICAL NEMESIS: The Expropriation of Health

by Ivan Illich.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/0303critic/030313illich/Frame.Illich.Ch1.html

.

[bongbong]

16. Interesting...

An interesting paper, but I wonder if there is newer research on the same topic. Illich's work is 35 years old, with many of the references & sources 40, 45 and 50 years old. Medicine, especially surgery & hospital practice, was in a very primitive state those days.

[CanSocDem]

20. In re-reading it...

...after 30+ years, I was concerned with its' age. I decided to post it anyway, because it speaks to the relationship between patients and the 'industry' and how the money is spent.

The changes are dependent variables of political and technological transformations, which in turn are reflected in what doctors do and say; they are not significantly related to the activities that require the preparation, status, and costly equipment in which the health professions take pride....

...A vast amount of contemporary clinical care is incidental to the curing of disease, but the damage done by medicine to the health of individuals and populations is very significant. These facts are obvious, well documented, and well repressed.

There's a lot of money in the industry's pocket, because scary advertising works and many people worry about their health.

Modern day Illich's are still here but we're having difficulty finding a publisher....

.

[valerief]

18. That's how the powers that be have organized it. Medical personnel, like the rest of us,

have no say in it. Not without revolution, of course.

[Burma Jones]

14. I live in the #4 highest life expectancy county, Montgomery, MD

We have about a million people. As of the 2010 Census, our Demographics are:

* 51.9% Non Hispanic White
* 16.3% African American
* 0.29% Native American
* 13.8% Asian
* 0.05% Pacific Islander
* 5.0% from other races
* 3.45% from two or more races.

In addition, 11.52% of the population was Hispanic or Latino

Our median household income is $91,440

So, we're more diverse, wealthier, and far more populous than the three counties ahead of us.

Collier County, FL has about a quarter million people of which 67% are non Hispanic white and the median household income is $48,289

Teton County, WY has about 18,000 and is 93% Non Hispanic white with a median household income of $54,614

Marin County CA has about a quarter million and is 73% Non Hispanic white with a median household income of $71,306


So, why would a large and diverse county do so well? For one thing, Republicans do not get elected to County Office, NONE, not even Register of Wills.

(I copied this off Wikipedia) "Since the 1970s, the county has had in place a Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) zoning plan that requires developers to include affordable housing in any new residential developments that they construct in the county. The goal is to create socioeconomically mixed neighborhoods and schools so the rich and poor are not isolated in separate parts of the county. Developers who provide for more than the minimum amount of MPDUs are rewarded with permission to increase the density of their developments, which allows them to build more housing and generate more revenue. Montgomery County was one of the first counties in the U.S. to adopt such a plan, but many other areas have since followed suit."

Our "achievement gap" in test scores between whites and minority students is the lowest in the nation. We're well educated. We have set aside 93,000 acres as an Agricultural Reserve so our green space will never be paved over. You can't go ten miles without encountering a Farmer's Market. This is a Liberal's paradise.....

[bhikkhu]

17. "The most important single intervention is to get people to stop smoking"

...the rate in my county is 35%, which is horrible. I know people with cancer, and people who've died from cancer, and many who are just sick and rotting from the inside out, but the worst is to watch the kids smoke in the alley behind the high school and know where they are heading.

Healthcare is a mess, and I don't nave insurance for my own family, but health starts with each individual's behavior. If I can't afford insurance I am prone to looking around at all the willful chronic sickness and disability-by-choice around me.

[bemildred]

22. I understand smoking is on the decline in this country.

Which makes it all the more difficult to explain a decline in life expectancy.

[WatsonT]

23. Obesity isn't so great either

and that is definitely increasing.

I wonder what how we'd compare if we controlled for that factor.

[RainDog]

19. so, right-wing policies are murdering people

can we arrest them for manslaughter?

[kestrel91316]

24. We are the greatest, most exceptional Third World oligarchy in the world!!!!

USA!!!USA!!!USA!!!

[kestrel91316]

25. "Inadequate" access to healthcare??? Try NONEXISTENT.