Life expectancy in the United States

LOL. And if you leave out my total lack of disposable wealth, I'm rich!

i'm really disappointed in you Ezra. How bout a nice set of graphs that shows the data INCLUDING a graph detailing obesity rates in the US vs the rest of the developed world.

I've never heard someone argue that the main difference in health expectancy was homicides or infant mortality, but is more likely from our less healthy way of living.

I was interested to see how the UK and Canada fared in this analysis since they have much more centralized health care systems. Maybe someone should show life expectancy as a function of health care spending.

As one comment notes, life expectancy after age 65 includes the effect of the mandatory Medicare program. Since the data suggest that Medicare decreases life expectancy, it seems wise to reform or eliminate Medicare and Medicare-like health care programs; however, some people might look at the same data -- forgetting the Medicare impact the depicts -- and plead in favor of "Medicare for all."

The Census Bureau has assembled some data that might be helpful. In particular, it is helpful to compare the life expectancy of those who participate in Medicare Advantage with the life expectancy of those who participate only in Medicare: Medicare Advantage -- the program being drastically cut by the Obama/Pelosi PPACA -- extends lives.

Finally, in a recent interview (see http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/10/austan_goolsbee_on_the_bush_ta.html), Austan Goolsbee noted that "People are getting way out in front of the evidence on this. Those comparative studies are mainly on very small economies, nations that are 1/50th or 1/100th the size of the U.S. And what little countries did to deal with their imbalances are frequently not available for giant economies like the U.S. or Japan." While Goolsbee was referring to fiscal policy, a similar caveat applies to health care policy: what works in tiny heterogeneous populations with specific demographics and customs (for example, Japan's reverence for elders at any expense) might not work in the United States or in the EU, where there is no EU health care system... only a diverse collection of EU member state health care systems.

It's always impolite to say so, but the discrepancy in life expectancy after taking out the listed factors is largely racial/demographic/cultural. Life expectancy of African American men is 66.1, compared to 73.6 for all others, 70.2 for all African Americans, 76.5 for all others. Given African Americans make up 12% of the population, that's worth about 1 yr lower life expectancy right there, which would put us right in line with Canada.

Now it's a fair question as to whether this discrepancy is purely a result of health care policy or genetics (probably much higher incidence of HBP, diabetes and kidney disease) or both, but to just throw up different countries' statistics without considering this is pretty weak sauce. After all, the main reason Japan is so much higher than everyone else is it's filled with Japanese. Their health care system is not markedly different in any ways from the other countries listed yet they blow everyone else away. And it may be nothing genetic and it could be racism or it could be dietary habits that are cultural, but to just ignore these statistics doesn't prove anything.

IF you factor out the 20 million 3rd world illegals it looks MUCH better.

IF you factor out the 20 million 3rd world illegals it looks MUCH better.

I believe that if you take out deaths, we are essentially immortal.

That's good color Ezra.

In my view, the reason our life expectancy is mediocre is because our health is mediocre (as visionbrkr suggests above).

Asian-American women in Bergen, NJ had a life expectancy of 91 a decade ago. Is this because they had access to the best health care in the country, or because this is a particularly healthy demographic?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/nyregion/12longevity.html

"“I think the people at the top are increasingly benefiting from improving technology more than the people at the bottom,” said Dr. Christopher J. L. Murray, the chief author. Much of the difference among counties, he said, appears to stem from differences in things like tobacco and alcohol use, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels."

The guy cited here claimed technology as an important factor, but then listed a bunch of health (rather than health care) factors.

Consider two hypothetical populations:

Population A consists of individuals who are sedentary, obese, smoke, hate vegetables, drink excessively and are sleep deprived. They also have been provided by researchers with $0 co payment / $0 deductible health insurance.

Population B are the polar opposites of the first group: they exercise for 2 hours per week, eat mostly plants and fish, have a glass of red wine once or twice a week, love green tea and sleep for 8 hours each night. However, this population is not allowed to so much as see a doctor.

If you had to place a bet on which group had the higher life expectancy, which would you pick? I would pick population B without hesitation.

If I had to pick specific values, I'd guess 70 years for population A and 82 years for population B. The actual results might be somewhat different, but I'd be fairly confident that population B would be higher, and that the spread would be quite large (5+ years).

Ummm, there appears to be something missing. The author nicely displays charts of deaths from homicides and accidents, segues smoothly into a discussion of statistical analysis, without ever revealing his calculations of what our life expectancy statistics should be. Instead, he shifts to a complete non sequitur into Medicare, which, as rmgregory suggests, would indicate that, far from increasing government involvement in healthcare we should eliminate it altogether.

And yes, my guess is that if there were studies that corrected for levels of obesity in this country, we'd see a startling difference in our life expectancy metrics.

Pretty close to the topic of obesity and life expectancy:

No, Obesity is Not Driving Health Care Inflation

"The CBO study explains that for more than two decades the cost of care has been spiraling for Americans of all sizes. Rising obesity is not a major force pushing health care costs higher...

"While Americans are fatter than their counterparts in many other countries, they are not significantly sicker. “The differential impact of the 130 diseases studied is less than $130 billion in treatment costs,” the researchers observe. Obesity was one of the diseases studied, along with conditions related to obesity such as congestive heart failure, diabetes, anxiety and various types of cancer."
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2010/09/no-obesity-is-not-driving-health-care-inflation-part-1.html

steveh46, that study discusses health care costs, not life expectancy. It confirms that the obese have lower life expectancy.

It also suggests that at least part of the reason obesity does not drive our costs as much as might be expected is because many of the obese do not have coverage. Obamacare is designed to change that, and will result in ever more spending on the obese.

I do believe that the study is correct in identifying new technologies, medicines, techniques, equipment, etc. as drivers of health care costs in this country. And there is little doubt that governmental cost controls will ultimately result in less of the aforementioned.

steveh46,

the point isn't that obesity is the SOLE DRIVING FORCE because everyone knows its not. The point is that Ezra always brings these posts up and pushes all the statistics his ideology wants him to push while forgetting the others that don't fit into his world. How's about this, doctors are paid too much in the US (or at least much more than the rest of the developed world. Whether that be from private insurers or Medicare. If we had the payment schedules in the US equivalent to the socialized world then we'd have lower costs (and I'd expect a good amount less practicing doctors although I'm sure we'd find doctors from other countries that'd be willing to pick up the slack because they'd still be making more here than their home countries.)

That being said as bgmma50 said you're talking apples and oranges.

"If we had the payment schedules in the US equivalent to the socialized world then we'd have lower costs (and I'd expect a good amount less practicing doctors"
visionbrkr

2007 Practising physicians Density per 1 000 population

USA: 2.43
UK: 2.48
France: 3.37
Germany: 3.50

Now, those physicians in other countries could make a lot more money right now coming here to practice. How much will Obamacare have to cut physicians incomes to get us up there at French and German ratios of practicing physicians for their populations?