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

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...

Always when I read this I think they are comparing too very different societies where healthcare is just one factor. Americans are so much less healthy than Australians due to lack of exercise, poor diets, stress, no holidays, guns and crime. Its a miracle that if the US health is nearly as good as Australians it shows how great the US healthcare system really is.

Part of the Australian national, state, and local health care system is policy to encourage healthy life styles and to discourage, limit, or ban food additives, tobacco, etc.

Back in the 1970s the AU Government was running campaigns such as Life. Be In It: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNjEge3Awl8 (many short segments airing with commercials on TV).

Planning requirements typically require open spaces, walking paths, sporting facilities, etc.

A "healthcare system" needs to be more than simply "immediate care for the injured, sick, and|or dying".

    > Part of the Australian national, state, and local health care system is policy to encourage healthy life styles and to discourage, limit, or ban food additives, tobacco, etc.

Except gambling?

There's a book or two in the backstory of why neither Dentistry nor Mental Health get the same inclusion in traditional health systems :(

Can you complete the assertion or cite what you were going to cite (if it was half done)?