English are 'healthier than Americans at all ages'

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

But Mrs. Obama gets crucified for suggesting that Americans eat healthier.

That criticism is just partisan politics, but I do agree with the critics that what we eat is none of the government's business.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Enlighten us....what is it due to then?

See post 12.

Thanks and combine that all with the fact that over 40 million people have no, or inadequate health insurance sure does add to the problem.

Sure it does. The point, however, is that there are many other reasons that have nothing to do with the structure of our health care system.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

You're welcome to your opinion. But discounting the problems and inefficiencies we have with administering health care in this country is just naive.

There is nothing wrong with the administering of health care in this country. That works fairly well and we have the best quality of health care in the world. The issue here is the cost and a lot of that is the fault of the government.

 

[Sallow]

It's not because of Healthcare, the end........

Well..yeah it is.

The English have a piss poor diet..they smoke like chimneys and drink far more then their American counter parts.

The difference is they see their doctors more often.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Yup.

Miz Obama is all about dictating to others that they do without...not actually doing without herself.

So you're a crap eating hog to spite the first lady?

That's rather demented.

 

[The Joe]

The only thing an Englishman has healthier then me is an appetite for the slump-buster. Seriously, British chicks are dawgs.

 

[auditor0007]

It because Americans work harder, are under more stress on average and eat like shit. The obesity levels are horrible in this country which leads to horrible things like heart disease and diabetes. Many people in America just don't take care of themselves. Not a enough sense of personal responsibility when it comes to health.

But God forbid the government gets into anyone's business by trying to persuade them to make better choices. In fact, we allow our schools to feed our kids mostly crap that isn't good for them. Let's not forget the fact that there is a large percentage of Americans that just aren't smart enough to even know any better. And you want them to take personal responsibility for their eating habits? Good luck.

 

[Bern80]

This is one of the implicit claims that drives me nuts about the UHC, single payer crowd; why, why, why, why, why, why, why, WHY.......do you people insist there is a correlation between the avg. overall health and life expectency of an industrialized nation's population and it's health care system?

Actually I know the answer. The same reason liberals blame everyone else for everything else. Because they don't believe individuals are responsible for their outcomes.

 

[Bern80]

It's not because of Healthcare, the end........

Well..yeah it is.

The English have a piss poor diet..they smoke like chimneys and drink far more then their American counter parts.

The difference is they see their doctors more often.

Since when are doctors able to reverse the effects of smoking?

 

[Douger]

It's not because of Healthcare, the end........

Compare Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Costa Rica has a very good preventative socialist health care setup.
Nicaragua has whores for the falling empires corporaterrorists.
These folks have exactly the same diet, climate and way of life ( lotsa walking and use of hand tools)

It's getting better due to Uncles Hugo and Fidel supplying the Nicas with Doctors and eye doctors but they still need to ditch the(illegal in the empire but pushed here) chemicals.
We got a new ophthalmologist ( not optometrist wanna be) eye doctor from Caracas who worked for Bausch and Lomb for 15 years.
He's the bomb !

 

[Greenbeard]

Actually I know the answer. The same reason liberals blame everyone else for everything else. Because they don't believe individuals are responsible for their outcomes.

Pointing out that the development of reliable quality outcome indicators is in its infancy (if you look at popular measure sets like HEDIS you'll notice that it's almost entirely process measures, not outcome measures) is one thing. That's a very fair statement.

But then transitioning into the suggest that health outcomes in the aggregate have no connection to a nation's health care system--well, that's just silly. There wouldn't be much reason to train more doctors or build more hospitals on the margin if there's no connection between quality of health services and national (i.e. summation of individual) health outcomes; there certainly wouldn't be any reason to spend $2 trillion+ per year on health care. That isn't to say we don't have lots of people making unhealthy choices; the point is that if health outcomes are completely disconnected from your health system, then that's a serious problem. It's one thing to spend massive of amounts of money to get decent or good outcomes, it's quite another to spend massive amounts of money and get exactly the same outcomes you would get without spending anything.

The real disconnect of note is that health itself isn't priced as an output good; we generally don't pay for health outcomes, we pay for procedures--this despite the fact that most of us are after health when we interact with the health care system. And that's very much related to the first point on the relative development of process and outcome measures (as well as the current state of quality reporting in the U.S.). I'd love to see a day when we stop paying for proxies and start paying for that which we actually want. Some of the infrastructure for that is being laid down now but that's a long way off.

 

[Bern80]

Actually I know the answer. The same reason liberals blame everyone else for everything else. Because they don't believe individuals are responsible for their outcomes.

Pointing out that the development of reliable quality outcome indicators is in its infancy (if you look at popular measure sets like HEDIS you'll notice that it's almost entirely process measures, not outcome measures) is one thing. That's a very fair statement.

But then transitioning into the suggest that health outcomes in the aggregate have no connection to a nation's health care system--well, that's just silly. There wouldn't be much reason to train more doctors or build more hospitals on the margin if there's no connection between quality of health services and national (i.e. summation of individual) health outcomes; there certainly wouldn't be any reason to spend $2 trillion+ per year on health care. That isn't to say we don't have lots of people making unhealthy choices; the point is that if health outcomes are completely disconnected from your health system, then that's a serious problem. It's one thing to spend massive of amounts of money to get decent or good outcomes, it's quite another to spend massive amounts of money and get exactly the same outcomes you would get without spending anything.

The real disconnect of note is that health itself isn't priced as an output good; we generally don't pay for health outcomes, we pay for procedures--this despite the fact that most of us are after health when we interact with the health care system. And that's very much related to the first point on the relative development of process and outcome measures (as well as the current state of quality reporting in the U.S.). I'd love to see a day when we stop paying for proxies and start paying for that which we actually want. Some of the infrastructure for that is being laid down now but that's a long way off.

It isn't silly at all. The health care industry, its doctors, tests and precodures doesn't control or dictate the health of the population. The health care industry doesn't control your diet, your level of physical activity, your obesity or your other health habits (smoking, drinking, drug use). YOU control those things and those are the things that are going to predominantly determine your overall health and your life expectency.