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Wicked-Skengman t1_jcb7pry wrote

Reply to comment by ISBN39393242 in Health spending per capita, life expectancy 2021 by lemonzestttttttt

There are advantages of insurance based healthcare systems - the primary one being innovation.

It's no coincidence that the US has the largest dug companies at the cutting edge of research.

I'm not saying the US system is good by any stretch, but it has its advantages

Edit: we should also be careful with the data here - is the reason the US has a lower life expectancy a direct result of its healthcare system? I imagine theres a load of other factors such as lifestyle and diet that are more important

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Temporary-Alarm-744 t1_jcdbmor wrote

So what you're saying is the US is subsidizing the worlds research into pharmaceuticals by killing and bankrupting its own people. Nice. When you put it that way let's keep this system. It's only fair

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xylopyrography t1_jccv1e1 wrote

The last point is important.

Suicide, firearm deaths, deaths from obesity, deaths from smoking are all higher in America.

Opioid deaths are way, way higher, which pulls life expectancy way down because the age of death is tragically so young.

Your first point I'm not sold on. The US pharma system is beyond inefficient. They may output more but there certainly exists a system which could do 10x as much with the same funding.

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