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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: 0s | 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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rr808 ◴[16 Oct 24 02:47 UTC] No.41855120[source]▶
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.
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defrost ◴[16 Oct 24 03:09 UTC] No.41855222[source]▶
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".

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analog31 ◴[16 Oct 24 03:32 UTC] No.41855349[source]▶
Unfortunately, obesity rates are rising worldwide, including in Australia.
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Narkov ◴[16 Oct 24 03:39 UTC] No.41855380[source]▶
> Ozempic has entered the chat.
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atq2119 ◴[16 Oct 24 05:44 UTC] No.41855964[source]▶
This honestly feels like the kind of thing where 20 years from now we'll be more aware of the side effects and people will shake heads about how stupid "we" were today.

If this is going to be an exception, it'd be truly interesting.

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1. consteval ◴[17 Oct 24 21:01 UTC] No.41873744[source]▶
I cannot possibly even imagine how this could be the case, considering just how deadly and miserable obesity is. I don't see how we can hypothetically "solve" obesity and then go back to an obese population because the drug makes you nauseous or something. And that's not even considering the, what I can only assume to be, trillions of dollars of healthcare cost savings over time.