US Life Expectancy: Indicative of Healthcare Quality?

[Indy Coug]

List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The US is currently 38th in life expectancy from birth (i.e. how long a newborn is expected to live if born right now). This is often cited as an example of how the US healthcare system is failing -- that if somehow we were able to improve the system, we would be more "competitive" on the life expectancy front. Well, let's take a look at this from a different angle.

It would stand to reason as a person ages they become increasingly reliant on the healthcare system to extend their longevity. So how long are people expected to live GIVEN that they have already survived to age 65 or to age 80?

http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=GenderStat&f=inID%3A36

US Age 65 Females - tied 12th
US Age 65 Males - tied 23rd

US Age 80 Females - tied 3rd
US Age 80 Males - tied 6th

Unfortunately, the UN data decides to express expected longevity as an integer, so these ties often involve a large number of countries. Despite that, it appears that our healthcare system does a very good job at keeping people alive.

Where the US suffers on the life expectancy front is the mortality rates from ages 20 to 45, especially for the males. This is heavily influenced by the homicide, suicide and accidental death rates at these earlier ages. In the last decade, the US male mortality rates have improved at a significantly higher rate than US female mortality rates due to the drops in the aforementioned rates. I really don't have time right now to expand on this, but I thought I'd throw this out for discusssion.

[Moliere]

Using life expectancy as a basis on which to evaluate the quality of health care sounds incredibly flawed. Do people really use it for that purpose? There are so many variables that go into life expectancy that I can't imagine anyone would take that position seriously.

If anything the (relatively) low ranking in life expectancy is more due to eating/exercising habits than health care. I remember walking off the plane in Cincinnati after spending 2 years in France and my first thought was "holy crap Americans are fat!" We are glutinous pigs compared to many of the countries ahead of us in that list, and it's only getting worse.

[Indy Coug]

Using life expectancy as a basis on which to evaluate the quality of health care sounds incredibly flawed. Do people really use it for that purpose? There are so many variables that go into life expectancy that I can't imagine anyone would take that position seriously.

I agree, but that argument is definitely being used.

[ERCougar]

Of course life expectancy rates are used in the discussion because they're simple and intuitive. And of course, they're flawed (like any proxy variable representing a complex phenomenon). That doesn't mean they're worthless, however.

Indy--do you really think that there are 37 countries in the world with lower homicide and suicide and accidental death rates? I guess that's possible, but certainly counterintuitive--so...link?

I think poverty levels are likely a bigger contributor to the discrepancy than healthcare quality. Not even that poverty is directly killing people, but that it leads to poor health habits (fast food and the like) more frequently in this country than in others. We allow people to more easily kill themselves.

[Indy Coug]

Indy--do you really think that there are 37 countries in the world with lower homicide and suicide and accidental death rates? I guess that's possible, but certainly counterintuitive--so...link?

There are 83 countries with lower homicide rates than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._homicide_rate

[ERCougar]

There are 83 countries with lower homicide rates than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._homicide_rate

OK...so the next question would be--how significant of an impact on life expectancy does that really have?

[Omaha 680]

There are 83 countries with lower homicide rates than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._homicide_rate

There are 50 countries with lower traffic-related deaths than the United States. Most of the Western Eurpean countries and Canada who have higher life excpectancy than the US are included. This is not surprising given how much more we drive, but certainly this affects our life expectancy and has little to do with our quality of health care.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_death_rate

[byu71]

Of course life expectancy rates are used in the discussion because they're simple and intuitive. And of course, they're flawed (like any proxy variable representing a complex phenomenon). That doesn't mean they're worthless, however.

Indy--do you really think that there are 37 countries in the world with lower homicide and suicide and accidental death rates? I guess that's possible, but certainly counterintuitive--so...link?

I think poverty levels are likely a bigger contributor to the discrepancy than healthcare quality. Not even that poverty is directly killing people, but that it leads to poor health habits (fast food and the like) more frequently in this country than in others. We allow people to more easily kill themselves.

You look at how many kids are being killed which are gang related. I think someone said there have been more teens killed in Chicago than Americans in Afghanistan. We also lose a lot more young men and women protecting the rest of the free world. Places like Sweden, Canada, etc. are getting a free ride.