Intro LO:
A recent Axios article on the U.S. rank in global healthy life expectancy caught my attention. The American healthcare system is a conundrum as it’s the best and the most expensive, while American life expectancy is only declining.
The recent killing of an American healthcare CEO shows another, dark, industry feature because it’s “excellent” in denying healthcare claims. That killing created lots of empathy and support for the killer (eg, People).
“Why it matters: Mangione’s alleged crime and possible motivations have sparked nationwide debates over America’s health-care system and culture of violence, which have already rippled through business and politics.”
Quote from Axios AM, 11 December 2024
An ironic conclusion would be that the American healthcare industry is (only) for the rich and famous minority.
A majority of Americans is not able to pay the excessive insurance premiums for good – let alone best – healthcare (eg, CAP20, Commonwealth Fund, Harvard, Investopedia, KFF, Peterson Foundation).
Hence, a declining American average life expectancy.
The absence of any healthcare equality (eg, National health insurance) is only accelerating that American trend.
Axios Future of Health title: 1 big thing: RFK Jr. may be on to something
By: Caitlin Owens
Date: 6 December 2024
“U.S. rank in global healthy life expectancy
Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or not, he and the MAHA movement’s focus on chronic disease gets at an ugly truth: America is not as healthy as other countries. And predictions say that will get worse.
- That doesn’t mean America used to be healthier overall. It’s that it used to be healthier compared with the rest of the world and is falling further behind, although the U.S. has ranked behind other developed nations on health outcomes for decades.
- For all of Kennedy’s falsehoods, a political spotlight on chronic disease could open doors to examining U.S. health care failings that don’t always get a lot of attention.
Why it matters: The U.S. outspends other countries on health care by a landslide, but it’s not buying us the longer, healthier lives that people in other countries enjoy — and that will only become more true over time.
- The big question is whether Kennedy’s proposed solutions — some of which have run counter to or well outside of mainstream science, to say the least — will help or make the U.S. even worse off.
- And if those solutions include diverting resources away from infectious disease, better chronic health outcomes could come at the expense of declining vaccination rates, more measles outbreaks or other public health problems.
By the numbers: U.S. life expectancy is projected to increase from 78.3 years in 2022 to 80.4 years in 2050, a “modest” increase compared with other countries around the world, according to a new study by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation published in The Lancet.
- Its ranking globally will drop from 49th to 66th.
- It fares even worse in terms of how many years Americans can expect to live in good health. That number is projected to increase from 65.4 years in 2022 to 67 years in 2050, but the U.S. ranking will drop from 80th to 108th. In 1990, it was 37th.
Details: Mortality rates from chronic kidney disease, Alzheimer’s and drug use disorders are expected to increase. The U.S. drug-use mortality rate will be the highest in the world — more than twice as high as the runner-up, which is Canada.
- Even though there will be a small increase in life expectancy by 2050, “our models forecast health improvements slowing down due to rising rates of obesity, which is a serious risk factor to many chronic diseases and forecasted to leap to levels never before seen,” co-senior author Christopher Murray, director of IHME, said in a statement.
- “The rise in obesity and overweight rates in the U.S., with IHME forecasting over 260 million people affected by 2050, signals a public health crisis of unimaginable scale.”
Yes, but: There’s some good news. The death rates from ischemic heart disease, stroke and diabetes are expected to decline significantly, contributing to the higher overall U.S. life expectancy in 2050.
Zoom in: Women’s health is falling behind globally even further than men’s. And in 20 states — including Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana — the number of years women can expect to live in good health is actually expected to decline by 2050.”
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