[neffy]

Honestly, until we have actual Star Trek level medicine capabilities, I will take the NHS approach, loosely we want to cure you and never see you again, over the USA, again loosely, the patient is a source of income for all involved, so lets medicate and surgeon as much as possible, any day of the week.

The ultimate problem is that our current levels of medical knowledge simply aren't good enough, so the US approach often does more harm than good - and I would gently suggest that that shows up very clearly in US life expectancy figures.

[SoftTalker]

Yes, the incentives in medicine are all wrong. In government medicine, the incentives are to keep you away from the doctor, better to let you die than come back repeatedly. In for-profit medicine, the incentives are to keep you coming back repeatedly until you have exhausted your assets, then let you die.

[giobox]

The problem with overly simplistic comparisons like these is they gloss over real problems on both sides. The average life expectancy in Scotland for example is just ~61 - the UK average is a third more! So it's clearly more than just "hey the NHS is great" at play here.

It gets even worse when you drill into northern cities in the UK - Glasgow clocks in at a shocking 54.

[greatwave1]

Scotland's life expectancy at birth is ~78 [1]. Glasdow's life expectancy at birth is ~74 [2].

You're likely confusing life expectancy with "healthy life expectancy", which is a different metric that measures the number of years a person can be expected to live in good health.

[1] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_effect

[riversflow]

> US life expectancy figures.

Pretty sure that's our terrible diet and dangerous and slothful car culture.