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

(www.nature.com)
201 points andsoitis | 1 comments | 15 Oct 24 13:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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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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N_A_T_E ◴[16 Oct 24 00:51 UTC] No.41854613[source]▶
Is the US health system free market? The government provides healthcare via Medicare and Medicaid for seniors, the people for whom life expectancy and healthcare quality have the highest correlation.
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1. dahart ◴[16 Oct 24 04:51 UTC] No.41855726[source]▶
It’s a mixed bag, but the funding source doesn’t necessarily make it a controlled market, to the degree that Medicare and Medicaid pay non-government providers and allow competition (which again, is mixed). Medicare and Medicaid coverage make up one third of the US population. The other two thirds are on group/employer insurance, private insurance, or no insurance at all.

For non-seniors, the medical insurance system certainly sometimes doesn’t feel like a free market from the consumer perspective, but the insurance companies are private for-profit institutions, and the medical providers are too, so it may well fit the definition.