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

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 12:28:50 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571803

>> of 18 industrialized countries US is last or 18th in average healthy life expectancy Please don't go there. I get really, really tired of having to explain the intuitively obvious fact that life expectancy has little to do with the quality of health care and lot more to do with things like the per-capita number of fast food joints, cigarette consumption, miles driven per year, alcohol consumption, and hundreds or thousands of other factors that are at least as important as health care quality. Think about more pertinent criteria like the per-capita number of providers and imaging centers, the survival rates for particular cancers and other diseases, etc. These are the relevant metrics, not life expectancy. Why can you guys not see this rather obvious fact? but we need to treat people for outcomes not to make money. There may be some level of outcome-based treatment that is appropriate but the reality is that physicians cannot be accountable for the way Americans choose to live their lives. If you do that you're not going to have enough physicians to go around.

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 7:23:00 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571803

Good post Nicholas.

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 10:34:48 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571803

Avg life expectancy comparisons are bogus. The US avg is dragged down by trying to save every at risk baby. Countries that don't do that get high avgs as a result.

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 10:52:49 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571803

Why, pray tell, should so many people in the health care field make millions of dollars a year. Few physicians make a million a year, let alone "millions". A family practice doc on average makes 170K. Specialists, twice that and some more. But why should not the brightest, most intelligent, hardest working among us make this much money? Keep in mind that, counting benefits, an unskilled UAW assembly line worker makes well over 100K.

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 12:31:17 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1571803

when other countries don't count certain deaths at birth, that can change the average a lot. Think about it. you need 100 people living to 80-90 to make up for that 1 day old death

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/21/2009 2:06:51 PM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations Respond to of 1571803

First, it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country. health.usnews.com

To: Nicholas Thompson who wrote (489531)	6/24/2009 8:21:15 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1571803

For Life expectancy see politicalcalculations.blogspot.com For infant mortality rates (which also affect life expectancy) see below ---------- Q: If socialized medicine is so bad, why are infant mortality rates higher in the U.S. than in other developed nations with government or single-payer health care? A: U.S. infant mortality rates (deaths of infants <1 year of age per 1,000 live births) are sometimes cited as evidence of the failings of the U.S. system of health care delivery. Universal health care, it’s argued, is why babies do better in countries with socialized medicine. But in fact, the main factors affecting early infant survival are birth weight and prematurity. The way that these factors are reported — and how such babies are treated statistically — tells a different story than what the numbers reveal. Low birth weight infants are not counted against the “live birth” statistics for many countries reporting low infant mortality rates. According to the way statistics are calculated in Canada, Germany, and Austria, a premature baby weighing <500g is not considered a living child. But in the U.S., such very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such babies — considered “unsalvageable” outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive — is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. infant mortality statistics. When Canada briefly registered an increased number of low weight babies previously omitted from statistical reporting, the infant mortality rose from 6.1 per 1,000 to 6.4 per thousand in just one year. According to research done by Canada’s Bureau of Reproductive and Child Health, “Comparisons of infant mortality rates by place and time should be adjusted for the proportion of such live births, especially if the comparisons involve recent years.” Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. But when the main determinant of mortality — weight at birth — is factored in, Norway has no better survival rates than the United States. Pregnancies in very young first-time mothers carry a high risk of delivering low birth weight infants. In 2002, the average age of first-time mothers in Canada was 27.7 years. During the same year, the same statistic for U.S. mothers was 25.1 — an all-time high. Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as “stillborn” if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth. Forty percent of all infant deaths occur in the first 24 hours of life. In the United States, all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive. If a child in Hong Kong or Japan is born alive but dies within the first 24 hours of birth, he or she is reported as a “miscarriage” and does not affect the country’s reported infant mortality rates. The length of pregnancy considered “normal” is 37-41 weeks. In Belgium and France — in fact, in most European Union countries — any baby born before 26 weeks gestation is not considered alive and therefore does not “count” against reported infant mortality rates. Too short to count? In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby born who is less than 30 centimeters long is not counted as a live birth. Therefore, unlike in the U.S., such high-risk infants cannot affect Swiss infant mortality rates. Efforts to salvage these tiny babies reflect this classification. Since 2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 lbs.) were born in the United States. The parents of these children may view socialized medicine somewhat differently than its proponents. pajamasmedia.com