[TedDoesntTalk]

Consider that your experience is not everyone’s experience in America. My American wife was able to get emergency dental care within two hours at a dentist who she’d never seen before.

My Canadian uncle had to wait months for cancer specialists.

[lostlogin]

> Consider that your experience is not everyone’s experience in America

They we should use averages. Compare costs, or life expectancy, or some other measure.

[xyzzyz]

Life expectancy in US has more to do with very bad lifestyles of Americans, mostly obesity and drug abuse, than with quality of healthcare, which in fact is superior. We are great at keeping alive very unhealthy people. As a food for thought, consider that Japanese-Americans have higher life expectancy than Japanese in Japan.

[lostlogin]

> Life expectancy in US has more to do with very bad lifestyles of Americans, mostly obesity and drug abuse, than with quality of healthcare

Obesity, diet and drug abuse are healthcare problems. Dying is a healthcare problem, and that’s why I suggest using average lifespan as a crude measure of population health. Population health is something a unified healthcare system should be tackling, with obesity and addiction help and care.

US healthcare might be superior for some, but population health is poor relative to the cost paid. The expense is spectacular when compared to other countries.

[xyzzyz]

My point is that the reason the American population health is bad not deficiencies in what people typically understand as healthcare system (that is, hospitals, clinics and doctors). If prices tomorrow went down by 90%, and healthcare availability skyrocketed, we’d still have population that’s unhealthily obese and addicted to drugs. At the same time, countries that are much poorer, and have much worse access to healthcare, often have much superior population-level health.

Not all health problems are healthcare problems.