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Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 30 years to prove

(www.nature.com)
201 points andsoitis | 6 comments | 15 Oct 24 13:39 UTC | HN request time: 1.062s | source | bottom
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defrost ◴[16 Oct 24 00:22 UTC] No.41854450[source]▶
For an interesting side piece:

    Curiously, however, for a system apparently stultified by the dead hand of government, Australia’s health system far outperforms the free market-based US healthcare system, which spends nearly twice as much per capita as Australia to deliver far worse outcomes — including Americans dying five years younger than us.
The shocking truth: Australia has a world-leading health system — because of governments

Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/10/16/pubic-private-healthcar...

Bypass: https://clearthis.page/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crikey.com.au%2F...

    Overall, we now have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world.

   This is contrary to the narrative that pervades the media about our health system — one in which our “frontline” health workers heroically battle to overcome government neglect and inadequate spending, while the population is beset by various “epidemics” — obesity, alcohol, illicit drugs.

    In fact, Australian longevity is so remarkable that in August The Economist published a piece simply titled “Why do Australians live so long?”
Other references:

The Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/08/23/why-do-a...

AU Gov Report: Advances in measuring healthcare productivity https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/measuring-healthcar...

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1. dyauspitr ◴[16 Oct 24 01:36 UTC] No.41854799[source]▶
The issue with most of these is that they have better health outcomes overall but when it comes down to the uncommon cancer your mom has, she will have a much higher chance of survival in the US. The difference is a lot of poor folk without adequate healthcare die of relatively straightforward conditions like diabetes while if you do have healthcare you end up getting the state of the art though it might bankrupt you.
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2. defrost ◴[16 Oct 24 01:56 UTC] No.41854898[source]▶
There's nothing in the Australian health care system that precludes people with uncommon conditions seeking specialist treatments either in Australia or abroad.

> she will have a much higher chance of survival in the US.

Without a deep dive it looks ballpark the same, to be honest.

AU Cancer Survival Rates:

    The 5-year survival for cancer in 1991–1995 was 55% and by 2016–2020, the rate had increased to 71%. Even with decreasing mortality rates and increasing survival, the number of deaths from cancer has been increasing.
15 Aug 2024 - https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/cancer/cancer-data-in-austra...

US Cancer Survival Rates:

     Five-year survival rates have also been increasing for an even longer period of time. The overall cancer survival rate was 49 percent in the mid-1970s. It currently sits at 68 percent
2023: https://www.cancercenter.com/community/blog/2023/01/cancer-s...
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3. dyauspitr ◴[16 Oct 24 02:26 UTC] No.41855038[source]▶
Interesting, Australia seems to be actually doing better with cancer survival rates. I truly wonder what the downsides are if any.
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4. Narkov ◴[16 Oct 24 03:43 UTC] No.41855398{3}[source]▶
We/Australia has a massive focus on early detection of skin cancer due to our overly sunny weather. It's possibly that we detect more cancer and treat it earlier thus the better outcomes?
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5. dyauspitr ◴[16 Oct 24 05:02 UTC] No.41855778{4}[source]▶
I would love to see those cancer stats without the skin cancer stats.
6. grecy ◴[16 Oct 24 09:25 UTC] No.41857148[source]▶
> when it comes down to the uncommon cancer your mom has, she will have a much higher chance of survival in the US.

A few years back my Mum in Australia was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, given 12 months to live.

For just shy of 3 years she had radiation, chemo, trial drugs worth nearly a million a pop all in a brand new cancer Center. Because she lived a couple of hours away she got free transport to and from and free hotel. Not pay and claim it back, fully free.

She was on an enormous cocktail of drugs that dad would get at the pharmacy that raised a lot of eyebrows for the strength of the opiates among other things.

For three years they never paid a cent. They never paid a cent of health insurance, never had private cover, never had a deductible. That would all be the same if they had never worked or took a decade off to pursue some hobby.

Trust me when I say it was stressful and emotional enough without adding money or paperwork or insurance into the equation

The comparison to my friends in the US who couldn’t get a separated shoulder fixed because it was “out of network” or had to move hospitals the day after a C section because the insurance didn’t want to pay anymore is downright disgusting.

For real people living their lives the two systems are vastly different.