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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: 0.213s | 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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alwayslikethis ◴[16 Oct 24 00:48 UTC] No.41854605[source]▶
> the free market-based US healthcare system

market, maybe, "free" market? I doubt it.

It's not a very free market when there is such a large power differential between the buyer and the seller. You can't exactly shop around for the ambulance or the hospital when you need it, nor can you realistically circumvent the artificially constrained supply [1] of doctors to get cheaper healthcare (unless you live next to the border).

When the alternative is a one-sided market like this, government becomes rather more appealing.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association#R...

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drdec ◴[16 Oct 24 10:20 UTC] No.41857443[source]▶
>>the free market-based US healthcare system

>market, maybe, "free" market? I doubt it.

The consumer of healthcare is doubly removed from the price of healthcare. This is the opposite of a free market.

The patient did not pay the doctor, the insurance company does. In most cases the patient does not pay for insurance their employer does.

So the normal pricing forces of a free market are removed.

Then we need to talk about certificate of need laws which restrict the supply...

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nradov ◴[16 Oct 24 16:22 UTC] No.41860950[source]▶
The US healthcare system is deeply flawed but only a small fraction of spending goes to emergency care involving ambulance transportation. The vast majority of healthcare spending is for elective services and patients do have time to shop around. Self-insured employers have been cutting costs by pushing employees to high-deductible health plans with HSAs, which gives plan members a financial incentive to find cheaper options. Of course there are still challenges around getting meaningful price estimates from providers despite recent federal regulations on this topic.
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1. jandrese ◴[16 Oct 24 18:40 UTC] No.41862300[source]▶
In fact it's almost impossible to get a price estimate up front in many cases. A procedure may involve multiple codes which may or may not be covered by your insurance, and the only way to find out if they are covered is to have the procedure and then check the bill. Frequently you won't even get the codes up front. If you call they can't even say if a particular procedure will be covered or not, the call centers are just not set up to do that. There is incredible complexity as the procedure may or may not be covered depending on patient, provider, plan, how much they've spent this year, region, if the doctor's front office made a clerical error at any point, if the insurance company made a clerical error, if the claim is processed on a Wednesday vs. a Friday, etc... If you have a procedure done twice the coverage may be totally different on the second time, with some parts covered that were previously not covered and vice versa.

Thankfully you can often get denials reversed after the fact by calling and complaining, but that takes an hour and is another roll of the dice. The only people who like the US system are wall street people who own stock in the companies.