IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

gustavratzenhofer wrote:

It doesn't bother me, mysteryman, on the contrary... it excites me.

Well I'm flattered, but I already have a girlfriend.
Thank you for your interest however,and good luck in finding yourself a man to snuggle with this winter.

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Ok, thanks.

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mysteryman wrote:

As for the shirt,I am a lieutenant on the local volunteer fire dept and that is one of our shirts.
Sorry if the shirt bothers you.

He may want everyone to dress in overalls and look like a hick because he does, mm.

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Here are some interesting links as relates to the life expectancy debate.

First, this discussion of the statistics:
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/the-numbers-behind-life-expectancy-152/

So what I derive from that is how believable are the numbers? ....and don't get too serious about tenths of a year. Most importantly, life expectancy by country may be alot cultural and to some lesser extent, health care quality.

This site shows statistics for just one effect, obesity:

http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/10948414?graph%5Blimit%5D=10&limit_modifier=all&graph%5Blimit%5D=30&commit=%3E

My research on this estimates the number of years obesity reduces life expectancy is about 5 to 7 years, so if you compare the obesity rate of the U.S. at 32% to Japan at only around 3%, then add another 2 years to the U.S., bringing it to about 80 years vs around 82 in Japan. The site above shows the U.S. as the worst, so when compared with any other country, reducing obesity rather than even considering the health care system would raise the U.S. in the rankings dramatically. This is before even considering any other factor.

Now, consider smoking. Although smoking rate in the U.S. is about 21% now, the people that have died or are dying now are from generations with much higher smoking rates, up to around 40%. Information on smoking tends to indicate around 10 to 14 years reduction of life expectancy, so any ten percent difference in smoking rate with any other country would add another 1 to 1.4 years to the country with the 10% lower smoking rate, in comparison to the other country. I could not find adequate statistics to show historical smoking rates country to country, but suffice it to say that this issue alone could account for a significant impact in statistics. Without knowing the differences from country to country, life expectancy statistics mean very little in terms of quality of health care systems.

Another factor that turned up in all of this is the factor of homicides and criminal incarceration rates, both of which reduce life expectancies. Without trying to sort all of that out, suffice it to say that the U.S. would differ significantly in that respect from some other countries, and the corresponding comparison of life expectancies would therefore be impacted considerably.

The following site discusses the differences of cultures within the U.S. itself:

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030260&ct=1

I picked out the following quote from the above site:

"Disparities in mortality across the eight Americas, each consisting of millions or tens of millions of Americans, are enormous by all international standards. The observed disparities in life expectancy cannot be explained by race, income, or basic health-care access and utilization alone."

So there you have it. Life expectancy is not even close to being directly controlled by the quality of health care systems country to country.

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okie wrote:

mysteryman wrote:

As for the shirt,I am a lieutenant on the local volunteer fire dept and that is one of our shirts.
Sorry if the shirt bothers you.

He may want everyone to dress in overalls and look like a hick because he does, mm.

Wow! I thought I could dance with the big boys but okie is a beast from a different dimension and I will take this moment to bow out gracefully.

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hamburger wrote:

here is a "sappy story" for you , george .
it shows how inadequate healthcare and a subprime mortgage loan put a widow into dire straits .
of course , you are free to say : it's her own fault !
you might want to read the full article at the link .
hbg

Quote:

(the complete article can be found at the link)to pay for mounting medical bills.

Somehow I am skeptical of the completeness of this report and the veracity of the data provided. At age 77 this person is covered by Medicare - a truly universal healthcare plan available to anyone over age 65 in this country. Dyalisis is a procedure that, for those needing it, is fully covered by Medicare. Why did she really need the $50,000, and why did she sign the Mortgage? The Mortgage aspects of this story could just as easily have happened in Canada.

It is a sappy story - and an unbelievable one too.

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okie wrote:

I picked out the following quote from the above site:

"Disparities in mortality across the eight Americas, each consisting of millions or tens of millions of Americans, are enormous by all international standards. The observed disparities in life expectancy cannot be explained by race, income, or basic health-care access and utilization alone."

So there you have it. Life expectancy is not even close to being directly controlled by the quality of health care systems country to country.

Sure, there are several factors. The quality of the health care system alone will not necessarily explain all of it. Just as the cultural background alone won't explain it. (But nobody's gonna argue that Burkina Faso really has an excellent health care system - it's just their cultural background that influences life expectancy.)

That's why we haven't been looking at life expectancy as the only factor. Take infant mortality. It's 25% higher in the United States than in the European Union. 6.37 deaths/1,000 live births in the US versus 4.80 deaths/1,000 live births in the EU.

And it's below 4/1000 in countries like Sweden, Japan, France or Norway. Whereas it's about 13/1000 for the black population in the US.

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Quote:

a truly universal healthcare plan available to anyone over age 65 in this country

It's "universal" only for those individuals who've paid the 40 quarters into the Social Secuirty System.

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georgeob1 wrote:

hamburger wrote:

here is a "sappy story" for you , george .
it shows how inadequate healthcare and a subprime mortgage loan put a widow into dire straits .
of course , you are free to say : it's her own fault !
you might want to read the full article at the link .
hbg

Quote:

(the complete article can be found at the link)to pay for mounting medical bills.

Somehow I am skeptical of the completeness of this report and the veracity of the data provided. At age 77 this person is covered by Medicare - a truly universal healthcare plan available to anyone over age 65 in this country. Dyalisis is a procedure that, for those needing it, is fully covered by Medicare. Why did she really need the $50,000, and why did she sign the Mortgage? The Mortgage aspects of this story could just as easily have happened in Canada.

It is a sappy story - and an unbelievable one too.

It's totally believable story. The couple ran into trouble because they most likely didn't have a MEDIGAP health insurance policy, which would have filled in the gaps their MEDICARE policies.

The woman in question, needed the money to
pay her mounting medical bills. I believe her and recall that Medicare pays only about 80% of physician's fees.

If she had a medigap insurance plan, then one needs to recall that most medigap insurance plans
do not cover end stage renal failure. In fact if you have end stage renal failure prior to the start fo the medigap plan, the plan will not enroll you.

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The latest info coming out on Medicare is that the plan will not cover mistakes made by the hospital caused while the patient is in the hospital.

That includes wrong meds, infections, mistakes in blood infusions, amputating the wrong leg or arm, etc.

The government claims these coverage will no longer exist, and will save the taxpayers some 500 billion in the future.

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old europe wrote:

okie wrote:
I picked out the following quote from the above site:

"Disparities in mortality across the eight Americas, each consisting of millions or tens of millions of Americans, are enormous by all international standards. The observed disparities in life expectancy cannot be explained by race, income, or basic health-care access and utilization alone."

So there you have it. Life expectancy is not even close to being directly controlled by the quality of health care systems country to country.

Sure, there are several factors. The quality of the health care system alone will not necessarily explain all of it. Just as the cultural background alone won't explain it. (But nobody's gonna argue that Burkina Faso really has an excellent health care system - it's just their cultural background that influences life expectancy.)

That's why we haven't been looking at life expectancy as the only factor. Take infant mortality. It's 25% higher in the United States than in the European Union. 6.37 deaths/1,000 live births in the US versus 4.80 deaths/1,000 live births in the EU.

And it's below 4/1000 in countries like Sweden, Japan, France or Norway. Whereas it's about 13/1000 for the black population in the US.

I agree with you that health care is potentially a large factor, but if you don't have healthy people to begin with, the health care system cannot completely fix the problem.

Sort of along the same line of reasoning, I have another angle to propose to you concerning the infant mortality rate, in case you haven't thought of it or in case somebody else has not pointed it out to you. Do you think the health of the mother has anything to do with infant mortality? In other words, does obesity, drug abuse, and other health factors have no impact on having healthy babies? Considering the fact that obesity is higher in the U.S. than most other countries, it would follow that potential mothers are also likely more obese, and just generally more unhealthy. I have not researched it, perhaps Miller can add something here, but I suspect premature births may be a large factor in infant mortality, and there may be factors that are causing this phenomena.

I did not even mention infant mortality in my previous post that you answered, but I think I noticed george had taken up this issue with you already.

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miller :
thanks for your comments !
since i'm not familiar with the U.S. care health system , i thought i'd post that story to get some comments from americans .
it now seems that even george isn't that up-to-date on the american health care system .
i certainly know that the canadian system has it's flaws and would never pretend that it's the best in the world .
as with everything , different points of view exist about just about any subject - it all depends where one stands at a particular moment .
hbg

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I find these disucssions valuable because we see different points of view that are poles apart, and the reasons they are.

As with most things operated by government, it's very easy to see the flaws - even with the oldest ones such as education and security.

If we can compromise to find the best solutions for what many of us feel are essential for the health of any society, we may hear some ideas that may work that benefits everyone.

I see it as a gain-gain for all who spends the time to see both sides.

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okie wrote:

I agree with you that health care is potentially a large factor, but if you don't have healthy people to begin with, the health care system cannot completely fix the problem.

We seem to be in agreement. Excellent!

okie wrote:

Sort of along the same line of reasoning, I have another angle to propose to you concerning the infant mortality rate, in case you haven't thought of it or in case somebody else has not pointed it out to you. Do you think the health of the mother has anything to do with infant mortality? In other words, does obesity, drug abuse, and other health factors have no impact on having healthy babies? Considering the fact that obesity is higher in the U.S. than most other countries, it would follow that potential mothers are also likely more obese, and just generally more unhealthy.

That's certainly a good point. But I'm not sure if I can follow your line of reasoning...

You seem to be saying that, yes, infant mortality rates are really kind of high in the United States. But we shouldn't look at this isolated fact and conclude that the American health care system is really bad, because we have to take other factors into account. For example, that Americans are generally not as healthy as citizens in other countries due to obesity, drug abuse, and other health factors.

I tend to agree, but I'm not quite sure if you're trying to argue in favour of the American health care system here...

okie wrote:

I have not researched it, perhaps Miller can add something here, but I suspect premature births may be a large factor in infant mortality, and there may be factors that are causing this phenomena.

Premature births are indeed a factor. In the United States, premature infants are reported as live births, in other countries they are not. Countries that do report very premature babies (with relatively low odds of survival) include Canada and the Nordic countries, and mortality rates in these countries are obviously higher compared with other countries that do not register them as live births.

Here are the infant mortality rates for these countries:

- 4.63 deaths per 1 000 live births in Canada
- 3.64 deaths per 1 000 live births in Norway
- 3.52 deaths per 1 000 live births in Finland
- 3.27 deaths per 1 000 live births in Iceland
- 2.76 deaths per 1 000 live births in Sweden

compared with 6.37 deaths per 1 000 live births in the United States.

(data from the CIA World Factbook and from the OECD Health Data 2007 report)

okie wrote:

I did not even mention infant mortality in my previous post that you answered, but I think I noticed george had taken up this issue with you already.

I think george wasn't talking about the higher infant mortality rate, but rather put the higher fertility rate into relation with life expectancy. I think it's a valid point and it might explain some of the difference in life expectancy, but not why the infant mortality rate in America is as high as it is.

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How does universal health care influence infant mortality rates? How will implementing universal health care in America reduce infant mortality rates?

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The presumption is that "universal" care will reach a greater fraction of the population, thereby providing pre and post natal care to some who may not get it otherwise. It is a reasonable deduction, assuming the precept is true, to conclude that better infant survival will result.

As has been noted there are different counting and statistical methods in use among developed countries, which render comparisons of the published infant mortality rates suspect.

There are very large differences in female fertility and immigration rates between the United States and the European nations to which we are compared, not to mention the differences in the median ages of their populations. In most areas of Europe these gaps are growing. It is very likely that these factors affect the results as well.

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McGentrix wrote:

How does universal health care influence infant mortality rates? How will implementing universal health care in America reduce infant mortality rates?

Nobody knows.

However, the following data is from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Quote:

INTERNATIONAL INFANT MORTALITY

Although the infant mortality rate in the United States has declined significantly in recent decades, it was still ranked below many other industrialized nations in 2003 with a rate of 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births. This represents a slight decline from the rate of 7.0 in 2002, and is equal to the rate from 2001; however, it is considerably below the rate of 26.0 per 1,000 reported in 1960. Differences in infant mortality rates among industrialized nations may reflect disparities in the health status of women before and during pregnancy, as well as the quality and accessibility of primary care for pregnant women and infants. However, some of these differences may be due, in part, to the international variation in the definition, reporting, and measurement of infant mortality.

According to data reported by individual countries, six countries or territories had infant mortality rates that were half the rate of the United States or less. Hong Kong had the lowest rate (2.3 per 1,000), followed by Singapore (2.5 per 1,000). Overall, the United States was ranked 28th.

Note the bit in bold in the above assessment.

Also note the vast differences in infant mortality in relation to ethnicity, and how infant mortality is significantly higher not among the Hispanic, but rather among the black population:

http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa_06/healthstat/infants/graphs/0306im.gif

And have a look at the following graph to see the differences between the United States and other countries (all with some kind of universal health care) illustrated:

http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa_06/healthstat/infants/graphs/0307iim.gif

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georgeob1 wrote:

There are very large differences in female fertility and immigration rates between the United States and the European nations to which we are compared, not to mention the differences in the median ages of their populations. In most areas of Europe these gaps are growing. It is very likely that these factors affect the results as well.

I'm not sure how you think a lower median age in the United States would influence the infant mortality rate negatively...? And, as noted before, I don't think the difference in fertility rates has any kind of influence on the infant mortality rate.

I would see how a higher immigration rate would influence infant mortality (assuming immigrants enter the United States pregnant, and maybe in a bad condition), but the data on infant mortality among the Hispanic population (assuming we are mainly talking about immigration via the Southern border rather than from the African continent) doesn't seem to confirm this.

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Is there a state by state breakdown of infant mortality rates?

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old europe wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
There are very large differences in female fertility and immigration rates between the United States and the European nations to which we are compared, not to mention the differences in the median ages of their populations. In most areas of Europe these gaps are growing. It is very likely that these factors affect the results as well.

I'm not sure how you think a lower median age in the United States would influence the infant mortality rate negatively...? And, as noted before, I don't think the difference in fertility rates has any kind of influence on the infant mortality rate.

I would see how a higher immigration rate would influence infant mortality (assuming immigrants enter the United States pregnant, and maybe in a bad condition), but the data on infant mortality among the Hispanic population (assuming we are mainly talking about immigration via the Southern border rather than from the African continent) doesn't seem to confirm this.

I was wrong to include the median age difference in my comparison. I note your comparative data on hispanic infant mortality, and that it may well suggest a quantatative measure of the effect. However we receive many immigrants and not all of them are Hispanic. As a group they place large demands on all aspects of our public health care systems. Thre is strong data suggesting that social pathologies affecting the Black population in America to a greater degree than other groups likely contribute in large measure to their higher infant mortality rate.

I note also that even the rates indicated for the non-Black population of the U.S would still leave us in the same ranking in your table. It is very interesting to note the very strong positive correlation of that ranking to one of female fertility, starting with the lowest, and descending to the highest. On a statistical basis, this seems to be the primary associated factor.

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IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

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