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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (353420)	10/3/2007 1:48:15 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574004

My claim is that our deaths due to car accidents isn't high enough to counter deaths due to suicide to make the difference in life expectancy in many of those countries with a higher life expectancy. If its only the countries with high suicide rates that the US does worse then then the whole argument about US life expectancy being bad because of our health insurance system falls apart. It only has any strength at all because the US does worse in this stat than most very wealthy countries, not just those with the highest suicide rates. Also as I already pointed out suicide and car accidents are just two of many factors. The whole assumption that different life expectancies are solely or even primarily because of difference in the basic forms of how health insurance is provided in different nations is faulty. It really doesn't even make sense to make the comparison after adjustments because there are too many factors to reasonably adjust for, and because the adjustments are larger than the portion due to different health insurance. If you have one clear primary factor, than you can adjust for other factors, but you don't have one clear primary factor here.

To: combjelly who wrote (353420)	10/12/2007 4:28:15 AM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574004

cj, While there could be other factors at work, the obvious one is access to health care. Obvious? Or politically expedient? I think one of the reasons for higher life expectancy in some countries is the fact that their populations are more homogeneous. Is there any country on the list that has a large third world population, many illegal, many lacking language skill to even tell someone there is something wrong with them, lacking ability to seek and receive advice? Do any of the countries ranked higher have an illiterate home-grown population, raised out of wedlock by similarly illiterate mothers? If you look at any health statistics / problem, the problem is several-fold worse in ghettos. And problem with ghettos is not lack of access to health care (large percentage of residents have "free" Medicare / Medicaid. But by being illiterate, many ghetto residents lack basic skills to take care of themselves, seek advice on pre-natal care, care of young children etc. Do any of the countries ranking higher have higher rates of drug abuse? Numbers of drug addicted mothers giving birth to pre-mature babies? Joe