Affluence and a lack of health care in the US are proving deadly, Why more Americans perish as

[pampango]

Aussies live longer.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/asia/100506/australia-mortality-lancet

"Universal, affordable health care may be expensive, but the world’s first comprehensive adult mortality study provides hard evidence of how well it works to preserve lives.

While the risk of dying young in Australia has fallen dramatically over the past 40 years, the United States has failed dismally to improve its record, according to the University of Washington study of premature deaths in 187 countries published in the Lancet. The study, which estimated the probability that an individual who has just turned 15 will die before reaching age 60, considered premature, showed that the U.S. — despite being one of the richest countries in the world — had fallen significantly behind other countries in reducing deaths.

In 1990, the U.S. ranked 34th in the world in female mortality and 41st in male mortality, but by 2010 it had dropped in the rankings to 49th for women and 45th for men, putting it behind all of western Europe and some lower-income countries such as Albania. Australia, meantime, was one of the best performers, having shot up from 36th spot for females and 44th for males in 1970 to enter the top 10 countries in adult death prevention for both genders.

Health experts say one of the main factors explaining the stark contrast between Australia and the U.S., is the fact that, unlike Australia, only people with money can afford proper health care in the U.S. ‘‘The really big overarching difference here is that we not only have health care that is pretty much as good as you can find in the U.S. but it’s almost universally accessible.’’ ‘‘In the U.S., they’ve had access essentially only if they’d had money.’’

The survey of 187 countries is the most comprehensive assessment to date of global adult mortality and showed a massive rise in global inequalities.

[Quantess]

1. Yes, but Australians are oppressed and have no freedom

in their socialistic, fascist regime. Give me good old American FREEDOM! Australians have none.

[indepat]

2. These are but a few of the joys of living in a RW society wherein a corrupt and venal corporatist

congress aids, abets, and assures rampant income distribution inequality, the further concentration of most of the nation's wealth among a relatively precious few, and health care reform in the form of a very costly Republican bill which punishes many and assures the continued rake off of thousands of dollars per capita for the insurance companies. Does anyone wonder what those stats will look like after another ten or twenty years of living in a society eaten up with RW family values? :P

[inna]

3. excellent summary.

:(

[Greyhound]

4. But we can't "upset the system" by changing it. We must nibble around the edges until

the parasite grants us permission to remove it. Change is made slowly over decades or even centuries, it's the only way!
































:eyes:

[JoeyT]

5. Yep! That's why we need to keep electing Ds even if they're centrists.

If we can keep them in office long enough they can make this a liberal utopia!
Just you come back in four hundred years or so and you'll hardly recognize the place. ;)

[kath]

6. Kick. This country is SOOOOOO frickin' far behind the rest of the developed world in so many ways.

SHAMEFUL!!