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

(www.nature.com)
201 points andsoitis | 10 comments | 15 Oct 24 13:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.413s | 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. mbostleman ◴[16 Oct 24 03:08 UTC] No.41855218[source]▶
Free market-based US healthcare system? Which US are we talking about?
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2. globular-toast ◴[16 Oct 24 07:08 UTC] No.41856361[source]▶
"Free market" is one of the best examples of a technical term people use with complete confidence despite not knowing what it really means. Furthermore, even if you do know what it means you probably remember it as something you learnt on day 1 of economics class before learning all the reasons they never really exist and what governments try to do about that.
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3. grecy ◴[16 Oct 24 08:48 UTC] No.41856956[source]▶
Australians (and other outsiders) use that term when talking about aspects of the US because that is the Hollywood picture of how the US functions. That is the lie that is sold, and people outside have no way to know it’s not true. Even today there are hundreds of millions of Americans who say they live in a free market and that it’s the best thing ever.
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4. defrost ◴[16 Oct 24 11:50 UTC] No.41858020[source]▶
> Australians .. use that term when talking about aspects of the US because

Australians have a weird sense of humour - it's clear from here that most aspects of US economics are decidedly not free markets but so many US citizens never shut up about "free markets" and have such a bicameral Capitalist v. Communist view of the world that it makes sense to just deadpan nod along.

Maybe reread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41856242 and ask yourself if the article really thinks the US health system is a proper Adam Smith free market .. or just a "US free market" with extra heavy air quotes.

5. bratbag ◴[16 Oct 24 16:28 UTC] No.41861008[source]▶
The us system is what a free market approach inevitably degrades into when consumers don't have a real option to say no to a service.
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6. jazz9k ◴[16 Oct 24 16:45 UTC] No.41861156[source]▶
So the free market approach degrades to heavily regulated and government controlled?
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7. jandrese ◴[16 Oct 24 19:01 UTC] No.41862587{3}[source]▶
No, it degrades into monopolists with a captive audience. Insurance companies are modern day water barons.
8. valval ◴[16 Oct 24 20:28 UTC] No.41863520[source]▶
I’ve studied economics for years and I’m still of the opinion that the only government intervention to the market should be breaking monopolies and cartels. I’m waiting for a piece of literature that would convince me otherwise, maybe you could provide one?
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9. globular-toast ◴[16 Oct 24 21:56 UTC] No.41864246{3}[source]▶
I can't, but I'm curious how you think problems like externalities would sort themselves out. Also what about natural monopolies like utilities and infrastructure that can't really be broken up?
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10. valval ◴[17 Oct 24 20:44 UTC] No.41873567{4}[source]▶
I think humans are excellent survivors. I don’t lose sleep over externalities because of that alone. What I mean by that is that once people realise their daily lives are being affected by a negative externality, they start making decisions that alleviate that hardship.

I do recognise though that it’s an unsolved problem, and will lead to some form of regulation as our understanding is lacking.

I think only harmful monopolies should be broken up by force, since they’re a legitimate market force. I’m conceding some ground on that because I’m not prepared to claim that monopolies aren’t always harmless.