View Full Version : World's healthiest countries
This article ranks the World's Healthiest Countries (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-24/spain-tops-italy-as-world-s-healthiest-nation-while-u-s-slips?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=keyweesubs&utm_content=business&kwp_0=1159110&kwp_4=3740355&kwp_1=1562814&fbclid=IwAR3X3Rd9P1FY5SRWFA8q0lrcDSZ1CemoBFNiM_BNy n4ttKrgMOb2A3w30ZE)
Spain, Italy, Iceland are up at the top; followed by Sweden and Norway.
What??? Democratic socialist countries are among the top healthiest in the world?? Surely the US, with it's privatized, profit-driven healthcare system must be better.
The US is #35, allegedly driven by opioid abuse and suicide.
We're way down the list on nearly all the markers of a good life, from happiness to maternal health. We do rate high on war profiteering and gun violence, though.
iris lilies
3-15-19, 4:42pm
Oh please, we have had this discussion so many times we all can recite our argue,ents backwards.
Look at the “countries” of Idaho, Utah, New Hampshire—and their mortality and health measures. I think this indicates something about demographics and health in America.
Oh please, we have had this discussion so many times we all can recite our argue,ents backwards.
Look at the “countries” of Idaho, Utah, New Hampshire—and their mortality and health measures. I think this indicates something about demographics and health in America.
Translation: Poor, sick, and uninsured people are dragging down our average. (I think the point is that in more enlightened countries, everyone's health care is covered.)
Opiod abuse and suicide - looks like Big Pharma plays a big role, from pushing painkillers to having lethal drugs available.
I've wondered about the numbers for suicide too. I think it was AARP magazine that had an article regarding the stat that suicides of Americans age 65+, especially men, has increased in recent years.
So if all states had a compassionate end of life program, like Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, how would that number change? and would that change the U.S. standing regarding overall health?
iris lilies
3-16-19, 11:02am
I've wondered about the numbers for suicide too. I think it was AARP magazine that had an article regarding the stat that suicides of Americans age 65+, especially men, has increased in recent years.
So if all states had a compassionate end of life program, like Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, how would that number change? and would that change the U.S. standing regarding overall health?
I doubt it, death by suicide is probably a very small percentage of deaths.
It would sure change the “deaths by guns” stats, though!
This article ranks the World's Healthiest Countries (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-24/spain-tops-italy-as-world-s-healthiest-nation-while-u-s-slips?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=keyweesubs&utm_content=business&kwp_0=1159110&kwp_4=3740355&kwp_1=1562814&fbclid=IwAR3X3Rd9P1FY5SRWFA8q0lrcDSZ1CemoBFNiM_BNy n4ttKrgMOb2A3w30ZE)
Spain, Italy, Iceland are up at the top; followed by Sweden and Norway.
What??? Democratic socialist countries are among the top healthiest in the world?? Surely the US, with it's privatized, profit-driven healthcare system must be better.
The US is #35, allegedly driven by opioid abuse and suicide.I know it's popular to find fault in non-socialist systems but it's not fair to use articles such as this without providing disclaimers.
It has long been noted that discrepancies exist in the reporting provided by various countries based upon infant mortality rates and how/when they are reported, which tends to skew numbers which socialists use to promote their cause.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/09/infant-mortality-deceptive-statistic-scott-w-atlas/.
A 2006 report from WHO (http://www.scribd.com/doc/36960555/Neonatal-and-Prenatal-WHO)
stated that “among developed countries, mortality rates may reflect differences in the definitions used for reporting births, such as cut-offs for registering live births and birth weight.” The Bulletin of WHO (http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/07-043471/en/)
noted that “it has also been common practice in several countries (e.g. Belgium, France, Spain) to register as live births only those infants who survived for a specified period beyond birth”; those who did not survive were “completely ignored for registration purposes.” Since the U.S. counts as live births all babies who show “any evidence of life,” even the most premature and the smallest — the very babies who account for the majority of neonatal deaths — it necessarily has a higher neonatal-mortality rate than countries that do not.
A separate WHO Bulletin
in 2008 noted that registration of stillbirths, live births, and neonatal deaths is done differently in countries where abortion is legal compared with countries where abortion is uncommon or illegal, and these discrepancies generate substantial differences in infant-mortality rates. Jan Richardus showed (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3766988)
that the perinatal mortality rate “can vary by 50% depending on which definition is used,” and Wilco Graafmans reported (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2001.00291.x/pdf)
that terminology differences alone among Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the U.K. — highly developed countries with substantially different infant-mortality rates — caused rates to vary by 14 to 40 percent, and generated a false reduction in reported infant-mortality rates of up to 17 percent. These differences, coupled with the fact that the U.S. medical system is far more aggressive about resuscitating very premature infants, mean that very premature infants are even more likely to be categorized as live births in the U.S., even though they have only a small chance of surviving. Considering that, even in the U.S., roughly half of all infant mortality occurs in the first 24 hours, the single factor of omitting very early deaths in many European nations generates their falsely superior neonatal-mortality rates.
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