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American Health Worse Than Other Nations: Report
Jeffrey Young	 | 5 hours ago

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Politicians like to tell us that America has the best health care in
the world. This patriotic sentiment runs counter to innumerable
studies that show Americans spend more on health care but don't get
better health in return.
The latest example is a report published Tuesday by the National
Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, two entities that are
part of the prestigious National Academies.
The title sort of says it all: "U.S. Health in International
Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health."
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it
is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival
rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past
century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and
illnesses than people in other high-income countries.
The report compares the U.S. to 16 other rich countries, including
Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. To those who know, the results
aren't surprising. But they are unsettling: Life expectancy is worse
in the U.S. than in most of those nations; the infant mortality rate
is the worst; car crashes, violence and injuries kill Americans at a
faster clip than people elsewhere; obesity and diabetes are bigger
problems in the U.S. And so on.
The whole report is available here and a summary via press release is
here.
The New York Times highlights the fact that people younger than 50
years old fare particularly poorly in the U.S.:
Deaths that occur before age 50 accounted for about two-thirds of the
difference in life expectancy between males in the United States and
their counterparts in 16 other developed countries, and about one-
third of the difference for females.
For older Americans and people with certain medical conditions, the
news isn't as bad, the Wall Street Journal notes:
The authors noted higher survival as compared with similar countries
for Americans who lived past age 75, as well as better rates of
survival specifically in cases of cancer and stroke. They also noted
better control of blood pressure, cholesterol levels and smoking for
Americans.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/jeffrey-young/american-h
alth-worse-tha_b_2441236.html

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