Category Archives: General Cynicism

It’s no mystery why our people in the U.S. don’t live as long as elsewhere in the industrialized world.

1.  Lifestyle:

For U.S. males, life expectancy at birth increased by about 5.5 years (from 69.9 to 75.5) from 1980 to 2006. That’s good, but it still lags the average life-expectancy gains of 21 other countries. For U.S. women, life expectancy at birth increased by about three years (from 77.5 to 80.7) from 1980 to 2006, which also ranks lower than other developed nations.

Why aren’t Americans living the longest given the amount spent on health care? According to the report, about half of the gap between U.S. life expectancy and countries with higher life expectancy is because of heart-disease rates in the United States. Moreover, among U.S. women, smoking appears to account for lower life expectancy relative to other countries.

Obesity may account for one-fifth to one-third of the shortfall in U.S. life expectancy as compared with other countries, the report states.

Also:

Three to five decades ago, smoking was much more widespread in the U.S. than in Europe or Japan, and the health consequences are still playing out in today’s mortality rates, the report says.  Smoking appears to be responsible for a good deal of the differences in life expectancy, especially for women.  The habit also has significantly reduced life expectancy in Denmark and the Netherlands, two other countries with lower life expectancy trends than comparable high-income countries.

 

Because there appears to be a lag of two to three decades between smoking and its peak effects on mortality, one can predict how smoking will affect life expectancy over the next 20 to 30 years.  On this basis, life expectancy for men in the U.S. is likely to improve relatively rapidly in coming decades because of reductions in smoking in the last 20 years, the report says.  For U.S. women, whose smoking behavior peaked later than men’s, declines in mortality are apt to remain slow for the next decade.  Similarly, life expectancy in Japan is expected to improve less rapidly than it otherwise would, because of more-recent high smoking rates.

Obesity’s contribution to lagging life expectancies in the U.S. also appears to be significant, the report says.  While there is still uncertainty in the literature about the magnitude of the relationship between obesity and mortality, it may account for a fifth to a third of the shortfall in longevity in the U.S. compared to other nations, the report says.  And if the obesity trend in the U.S. continues, it may offset the longevity improvements expected from reductions in smoking.  However, recent data suggest that the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. has leveled off, and some studies indicate that the mortality risk associated with obesity has declined.

2.  A non-system of health care in which many people have limited access:

Lack of universal access to health care in the U.S. also has increased mortality and reduced life expectancy, the report says, though this is a less significant factor for those over age 65 because of Medicare access.

Medicynical Note:   The health care industrial complex has excelled at making money not improving longevity and public health.  Somehow this needs to change.

Only in America:  Tucson shootings: Focus is on Arizona’s gun laws – latimes.com.

We’re number one in the world in death by weapons. And the only place in the industrialized world where allegedly mentally ill people can easily buy and carry and use assault weapons.

That’s freedom?

Is this the most pathetic story imaginable?

The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy’s father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot. But Christopher’s father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon

Or is this one?

Medicynical Note: American exceptionalism at work.

Addendum: The attempted assassination of Representative Giffords 18 people shot, 6 killed.

Addendum 1/20/2011: Nine campuses were locked down after a school officer was shot outside El Camino High, a day after two students were shot in Gardena. A Bell student was also shot on his way home.

Addendum: 1/24/2011 Think it might be the guns?  Or is it just Americans asserting their 2nd amendments rights?  11 police shot in 24 hours.

Addendum: 1/30/2011 Mother shoots children, they were “mouthy”

It’s reported that in 2009 heatlh care costs increased by the smallest amount in 50 years:

Total national health spending grew by 4 percent in 2009, the slowest rate of increase in 50 years, as people lost their jobs, lost health insurance and deferred medical care, the federal government reported Wednesday. Still, health care accounted for a larger share of a smaller economy — a record 17.6 percent of the total economic output in 2009, the report said.

The economy contracted while health spending continued to grow.

Medicynical Note: This decrease in spending means little when one considers the annual inflation rate in 2009 was -.4%. and as noted the % of GDP spent on health care rose to a record 17.6%. Of course this happens in places where politicians make up their own facts to suit their views.

And that is not only in America.