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Article: Being American is Bad for Your Health

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 2/5/2013 2:13 PM (GMT 0)
"Americans are sicker and die younger than people in other wealthy nations."That stark sentence appears in the January 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it comes from the authors of a landmark report -- "Shorter Lives, Poorer Health" -- on differences among high-income countries.

The United States spends more on health care than does any other country, but its health outcomes are generally worse than those of other wealthy nations. People in the United States experience higher rates of disease and injury and die earlier than people in other high-income countries. Although this health disadvantage has been increasing for decades, its scale is only now becoming more apparent.

A new report1 from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (NRC/IOM) documents that US males and females in almost all age groups—up to age 75 years—have shorter life expectancies than their counterparts in 16 other wealthy, developed nations: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The scope of the US health disadvantage is pervasive and involves more than life expectancy: the United States ranks at or near the bottom in both prevalence and mortality for multiple diseases, risk factors, and injuries.

Full J.A.M.A. Article
Posted 2/5/2013 2:23 PM (GMT 0)
Guess that challenges the theory that countries with a national health program provide lesser care!
Posted 2/5/2013 2:55 PM (GMT 0)
"America spends more on health care than any other country"

The real reasons for this is not just because Americans are sicker. It's that private insurance and pharmaceutical companies are obliged (by their shareholders) to make as much profit as possible.

It's good old capitalism on steroids!

Posted 2/5/2013 3:03 PM (GMT 0)
I am not surprised at all. I am happy they are bringing it to the attention of the mainstream but I think you would have to be living in a bubble if you didn't already know this information. USA is not a place I would choose to live. Unfortunately I was born here and it's doubtful anyone else would have me. Plus, I am trapped here due to lacking funds.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:08 PM (GMT 0)
It's not just the healthcare system, it's poor lifestyle choices in terms of diet and lack of exercise, not to mention high stress (long hours at work especially for many people).
Posted 2/5/2013 3:13 PM (GMT 0)
When we lived in the US we lived about a mile from my husband's workplace. Of course we just assumed he would walk to work and I would keep the car (since I had a child and there was literally nothing to do I used to drive around trying to find activities until I gave up). He came back from his first day of work and told me he would never walk again - there were no sidewalks most of the way to the University and he was the ONLY person walking. Even the students drove trucks/SUVs to school (never seen that before). And, for good measure, people driving past him thought it would be funny to try to run him off the road. Apparently that's funny in some parts. We got out of there as soon as we could and I know that's not the entire country but it was a disturbing insight (and this was a medium sized city). Never again.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:22 PM (GMT 0)

C_G_K said...
It's not just the healthcare system, it's poor lifestyle choices in terms of diet and lack of exercise, not to mention high stress (long hours at work especially for many people).

This. Correlation does not prove causality. The south doesn't have a lower quality health care system than the rest of the United States, but we have the worst health, mostly attributable to lifestyle choices like CGK said.

KC, I went to college in Raleigh an most people walked everywhere. The only time I ever drove to class was when it was on the Centennial Campus-about three miles away. It definitely wasn't the atomsphere that was in your situation.

Posted 2/5/2013 3:25 PM (GMT 0)
Killcolitis,

I had to LOL. Same thing when I first moved here. I was about a half mile from work, but no sidewalks, so either had to drive or trip through the rocks, bushes and mud, while running the traffic gauntlet. Was very strange having come from Canada.

The level of obesity here is nuts too.

Since I've always had good health insurance, my healthcare is actually better here in terms of access to needed testing and medical specialists, etc., but without insurance it's not good.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:27 PM (GMT 0)
Levi, I don't mean to bash. I was very scarred by this experience. Oddly given my last comment we are hoping to move to California in the next few years (mostly for the weather, lifestyle and we have some good friends there). So, I know it's not all the same though we have some serious concerns. But, this was a "university town" in NY and I have to say I was beyond shocked. I thought I was over reacting but then all of our visitors had the same reaction. No one walked anywhere, no side walks, everyone driving around in suvs/trucks with a million bumper stickers on them (I assume that was a way of communicating with others in society where there was so little real interaction), hostility towards people who walked and took public transit (!). I don't know how representative of the rest of the country it was, but I can imagine not living very long (and not wanting to) in that sort of place.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:33 PM (GMT 0)
KC-Wow that does sound terrible. We may not live as long in the south but we are friendly, in my experiences :D
Posted 2/5/2013 3:35 PM (GMT 0)
I live in Scottsdale, AZ now and it's completely different. People are insanely health conscious, with very few people overweight. It's even hard to find a KFC or other junky fast food places. You have to drive into Phoenix.

Lots of sidewalks and bike paths, and the weather is fantastic if you like sunshine.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:35 PM (GMT 0)
CGK, It's good to know we weren't the only ones I guess (?). It's a culture shock for sure -we've lived in many different places and coming from Canada I didn't expect one moving to the US but it was huge.
Posted 2/5/2013 3:52 PM (GMT 0)
Certainly walking more and getting more exercise would do us all a lot of good.

The thing that gets me the most, is people who drive their SUVs to the end of their driveways in order to get their mail. They end up parking in a weird way (somewhat blocking traffic) so they can get mail from the box without getting out of the car --so frigg'n lazy. And I mean seriously people?

I walk to the grocery store down the street from my house (about a couple tenths of a mile down the road) and carry my groceries home. I mention it to people I talk to from time to time and they are completely aghast by this; what do you mean you don't drive? I have a couple grocery bags at most and it is good exercise.

My brother bicycles to and from work on nice days during warm weather, he has one of those cafe-style race bicycles with 20-someodd gears, and he can easily get up to 30+ mph. He says it is wonderful passing traffic in the busy downtown areas as he gets close to his work.
Posted 2/5/2013 4:00 PM (GMT 0)
I think there are huge extremes. With good health care insurance and if you're lucky enough to live in a place that encourages a healthy (otherwise considered normal) lifestyle, you can have one of the best QOLs in the world. If not, it's pretty poor as far as health is concerned. Am I right? I'm interested as we're thinking of moving and obviously have a child with a medical issue.
Posted 2/5/2013 4:05 PM (GMT 0)
I think the QOL is good for the rich. For anyone that's middle (does middle class still exist?) or lower class, there is no QOL. All we do is work.
Posted 2/5/2013 4:11 PM (GMT 0)
killcolitis, well that is the biggest thing in the US is the inequality among those who have and have not when it comes to healthcare. And that bares down on the average of the US as a whole. Certainly, if you are a salaried employee of middle class status then you are likely well insured and are located in a zipcode where healthcare is excellent and you seek care whenever you need it. The opposite, a lower class person without insurance likely puts of healthcare decisions, delays them as long as possible due to anticipated costs, and the diagnosis is late likely at the stage of reaching the emergency room and by then the prognosis is far worse. When you live paycheck to paycheck it isn't as easy to spend hundreds of dollars on drs and tests, when there are mouths to feed and bills to pay (and maybe I'll get better if I give it more time...).

In most other countries access to healthcare is a fundamental human right of all citizens (aka universal coverage). In the US, it is a privilege for those who can afford it. And the cost is out of control only making the gap wider.
Posted 2/5/2013 4:11 PM (GMT 0)

C_G_K said...
Killcolitis,

I had to LOL. Same thing when I first moved here. I was about a half mile from work, but no sidewalks, so either had to drive or trip through the rocks, bushes and mud, while running the traffic gauntlet. Was very strange having come from Canada.

The level of obesity here is nuts too.

Since I've always had good health insurance, my healthcare is actually better here in terms of access to needed testing and medical specialists, etc., but without insurance it's not good.

I agree. I currently live in a smallish town in southern Indiana and only live a mile from work but end up driving most days because there are no sidewalks and drivers are really rude if you are walking. Even just walking around my neighborhood, people will honk their horns loudly at me to scare me or yell stuff out the window. Now, where I used to live in northeast Iowa, it was complete opposite. Everyone walked and biked around town, there are bike trails and sidewalks everywhere and the people there are more in shape and friendlier in general. It seems the majority of people where I live now are pretty redneck, grouchy and really unhealthy. I just can't believe how much people can treat their bodies like crap, yet I'm the one who gets stuck with UC, go figure. confused rolleyes
Posted 2/5/2013 4:52 PM (GMT 0)
I guess the no sidewalk thing was not an anomaly.
nssg, that's true of the middle classes everywhere I think but here we don't have to worry about the insurance issue. While it's true that there are issues with wait times etc in Canada we've never not had medical care when we needed it.
I think inequality is always going to impact health but in the US it's a massive gap and the unheathy are SO unheathy. I'd never heard of a "food desert" until recently. I can not believe there are large areas of the country where people have NO access to fresh produce and only to fast food. There's got to be something very wrong with a place for that to happen, no?
Posted 2/5/2013 5:47 PM (GMT 0)
There are so many variables I don't know how much you can read into the report. It can be used as a statistic but I don't know how much useful information you can glean from it. One could argue that we have more fast food restaurants (even the real restaurants can have atrocious menu choices), we are probably more obese, and gun violence seems to be out of control. People with good health inurance probably fare far better than other countries around the world, while people with no or poor health insurance probably have it worse than some third world countries. As others have already mentioned there are pockets of healthy behaviours around the country and pockets of the opposite, pockets of areas that have more criminal activities and pockets of the opposite, and pockets of more well to do areas and pockets of the opposite. These things may be more pronounced here than in other countries.
Posted 2/5/2013 6:04 PM (GMT 0)
I think the hardest thing is just to get Americans in general to admit there is a problem in the first place "We are the USA, and therefore #1, so we have the best darn healthcare in the world here" lol. As the problem has got to be recognized before you can really begin to address it. Even a number of these posts are "well it isn't bad in my area, my insurance is good, and such" that just misses the point as the country as a whole isn't doing well and that's something we all should care about. Nobody should be left out just because they are poor and in a more rural part of the country ... it should be the same quality and access to care no matter where you reside.
Posted 2/5/2013 8:31 PM (GMT 0)
I think the rural thing applies to all countries. I have seen numerous posts here, particularly from Canada, where people who live in rural areas have worse healthcare options than people in large cities.
Posted 2/5/2013 9:18 PM (GMT 0)
I work in New York City...I think that says it all smilewinkgrin The only thing that helps me is taking off a week every 2 months to de-stress. 

I do believe that people need to do their part and help themselves as far as their health goes.  I see people that are obese shoving cheeseburgers in their mouths and washing it down with soda.  I don't mean this to be offensive to anyone but common sense is the key.  

 

Posted 2/5/2013 10:24 PM (GMT 0)
Wouldnt want to live anywhere else, but we are a nation of fools destroying both ourselves and the planet

Post Edited (freddyj) : 2/5/2013 3:55:52 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 2/5/2013 10:33 PM (GMT 0)
^^ the whole world shares that distinction on many different levels, actually.
q
Posted 2/5/2013 10:47 PM (GMT 0)
In defence of our yankee cousins, Canadians had better not get too smug as Universal Health Care didn't really start until the early 70's.   Prior to that it was exactly the same as the US.    And it took a long time before they got the idea of having sidewalks in smaller out of town settlements---again exactly the same as the US.
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