Re: OT. American "health system"

bash wrote:
On Oct 23, 4:05 pm, Mark & Steven Bornfeld
<bornfeldm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
bash wrote:

According to wikipedia, we are in the 84th percentile in infant
mortality and 81st percentile in longevity. Is this the worst? Not
even close. Is it because of our health care system or our lifestyle?
It's because we're lumped in with countries like Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan. I think we deserve to be compared to other first world
countries, and not equatorial countries in Africa that have life
expectancies of about 30. I think (for example) that we should be doing
better and not worse than Cuba in infant mortality:

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

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDShttp://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001

Again I ask you, is it healthcare or lifestyle?


That sounds like a straightforward question but it's really not. I hope you're not blaming the poor for not taking care of themselves. For my money, the biggest preventable cause of death in the US is smoking; I'm inclined to think (but I don't know this) that smoking rates in the US are probably lower (if anything) than in Europe. Number 2 is obesity and related problems; here we may have a bigger lifestyle problem than much of Europe.
Still, this doesn't explain the infant mortality rate. I am not an epidemiologist--there's a fellow in the bicycle racing group who has all these charts and can hold forth very eloquently about how we suffer in comparison with other countries with about the same per capita income who spend far less on average on medical care. I don't have the figures at hand, but they're out there.
There are large parts of this country where prenatal care is basic to non-existent; malnutrition is common; vaccines are not given; people don't go to doctors. You can say that it's a lifestyle problem because many of these people (certainly not all) are illegal aliens and it's not the fault of our so-called health care "system". I happen to disagree, esp. when communicable diseases like measles and tuberculosis are out there. I refuse to believe we're stupider or less moral than the citizens of other countries, some considerably less rich than ours, who somehow manage to deliver services to rich and poor and are healthier than we are. Our refusal to accept the obvious shortcomings in healthcare delivery here does not speak well for us as a country.
Rant over.

Steve
.

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