US Ranks Number 1 in Life Expectancy

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Shanghai is hardly a measure of Chinese healthcare, or Chinese anything.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
"If you really want to measure health outcomes, the best way to do it is at the point of medical intervention."

Yeah, especially if you specifically want to exclude the people who never get treated because they don't have insurance... 🙄

The article makes a valid but trivial point in saying that life expectancy by itself is not a valid indicator o ...[text shortened]... stead? Here's a list:

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

"Yeah, especially if you specifically want to exclude the people who never get treated because they don't have insurance..."

What a canard. People get treated without insurance most of the time. The problem is that insurance causes higher prices, due to removal of the consumer from the process. Prices rise when producers don't have to worry about the customer affording their product.

Originally posted by sh76
I think it's arrogant and inaccurate to claim that the US has the best healthcare system in the world. The high end US hospitals may be the best in the world, but that does not spread to all people. Other countries have similar or better results at a much lower cost. I'm not a fan of the ACA, but pretending there's not a problem is not the way to get a better solution.

The problem, which you say exists and I agree it does, is not that America has too much of a free market, and not enough socialism, but that too large a portion of the really needy are already socialized through Medicare and Medicaid. It is idiotic to blame excesses of the free market for a government health care system. Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, huge portions of the US health care system already socialized, not to even mention the facism of the corporate pharma industry.

Originally posted by techsouth
You read it in the NY Times over and over. They complain that the US health care is bad because our life expectancy is not as high as some countries with socialized medicine.

Even without extensive statistical training or other background information, an average intelligence person can see the fallacy of this. But we don't get to write for the NY Time ...[text shortened]... at have an emotional stake in believing the US health care is so bad judging from the responses.

As you imply, there are hosts of immeasurables between one health care system and another nation's. That applies to claim the US's is best, or all the socialist wonders are better. There is no way of apple to apples comparison.