Let me split these comments off from another thread and start anew.
For example, it turns out that the big improvement in the median lifespan isn't mainly due to people actually living longer. It's raised by having fewer people dying younger. The statistics didn't make any promises either way, and I appreciate that it's a subtle concept, but "living longer" can generate a lot of false hope until you realize that the last century's real lifespan gains were mainly due to public health initiatives like sewage systems... and not just by having a few more people live past 100.
Same skepticism with comparisons between mortality rates and healthcare costs. Is it possible that U.S. doctors & ERs tackle patients that other countries would have declared DOA? What about neonatal intensive care that costs millions before the patient dies? Hopeless organ transplant cases where the patient's care costs millions waiting for a tissue match? Heroic geriatric ICU end-of-life efforts for patients who in other countries would probably die at home? Outlandish R&D expenses for diagnostic equipment & drugs that save only a few lives and would be regarded as way past diminishing returns were it not for the fact that these patients are someone's family?
If the U.S. is tackling a higher proportion of the tougher cases then a tremendous cost is incurred with a much lower survival rate. Does anyone know if this effect is considered or adjusted for?
OldMcDonald said:I've said it before, but its worth repeating - all of the "1st world" countries that have universal care have longer average lifespans than the US, despite the US spending as much as twice as much or more on a per capita basis - I don't even understand how anyone can argue that we have the "best" health care sytem in the world...it's simply not true but any metrics that matter to the average individual, or to the society as a whole.
I'm becoming very cynical about medical data.Rich_in_Tampa said:Meaningful outcomes measurements, even when corrected for lifestyle risk, rate the US health care system as OK, but not stellar, with expenses that outpace everyone else by 30% or more. Much more in many cases.
For example, it turns out that the big improvement in the median lifespan isn't mainly due to people actually living longer. It's raised by having fewer people dying younger. The statistics didn't make any promises either way, and I appreciate that it's a subtle concept, but "living longer" can generate a lot of false hope until you realize that the last century's real lifespan gains were mainly due to public health initiatives like sewage systems... and not just by having a few more people live past 100.
Same skepticism with comparisons between mortality rates and healthcare costs. Is it possible that U.S. doctors & ERs tackle patients that other countries would have declared DOA? What about neonatal intensive care that costs millions before the patient dies? Hopeless organ transplant cases where the patient's care costs millions waiting for a tissue match? Heroic geriatric ICU end-of-life efforts for patients who in other countries would probably die at home? Outlandish R&D expenses for diagnostic equipment & drugs that save only a few lives and would be regarded as way past diminishing returns were it not for the fact that these patients are someone's family?
If the U.S. is tackling a higher proportion of the tougher cases then a tremendous cost is incurred with a much lower survival rate. Does anyone know if this effect is considered or adjusted for?