Avoidable deaths are on the rise in the United States, yet falling in many peer nations.
Avoidable deaths are on the rise in the United States, yet falling in many peer nations
https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
United states is ranked 48. And they claim to have th best healthcare in the world.
Obviously that's not true, they may have one of the best for the very rich. But on average it's VERY bad.
Food standards are also bad, so again it's only if you are doing well that you can afford healthy food.
The countries surrounding USA on this list have about a third the wealth per capita!!!
Man, that table is wild. South Africa has a lower life expectancy than Afghanistan and in Russia women live 12 years longer than men? Bonkers.
Best health care = most profitable health care.
We can add time to your life by charging so much money and limiting access via networks that you avoid care until it’s too late. Or you just choose the cheapest insurance that’s actually useless if you need it. Now that you’ve collapsed from a heart attack and taken a $5k ride in a fancy ambulance to the out-of-network ER that has reduced coverage for non-preapproved procedures we can extend your life via stents and bypasses or other serious measures. You have severely reduced life expectancy, maybe lost your job if the attack disabled you, maybe lose your home, but look how great our medical care was in making sure you didn’t use it until you desperately needed it!
'Shithole country'
Have more babies though.
Your owners need your kids to be exploited into an early, miserable grave to run up their nepo kid's ego scores. The doting ones at least, the owners toss kids that don't become little nepo clones of themselves as bad investments.
Luxury climate bunkers are boring, are you really going to deprive a future billionaire child that matters the joy of watching line go up powered by your worthless peasant offspring's life force, you monster?
Maybe stop being so selfish and think about what you can do to further enrich your betters. Priorities, my fellow batteries, priorities!
The batteries analogy in the Matrix was bad and originally it was that the machines used humans as bio-computers, which makes a lot more sense.
I'm aware, that's my Fandom, I know the lore intimately.
Being a "battery" is in the vernacular though, and most understand what a capital battery means.
I even see the Architects nod to the supposed answer requiring a "lesser mind" albeit a more human curious mind in the oracle was a nod to that original idea the studio mandated the Wachowskis change, from bioprocessors to batteries. Would have worked on so many levels, even with the machines falling victim to repetition loop breakdowns without processing from imperfect minds, but that was on the Studio, the writers were vocal they didn't like the change, which makes it easy for me to look beyond.
"When the researchers examined the causes of avoidable deaths (including road traffic accidents, illnesses preventable by vaccines, treatable conditions like sepsis or appendicitis, and conditions preventable by early detection and treatment like cervical cancer, ischemic heart disease and tuberculosis), they found that deaths from a variety of different causes are rising in every U.S."
“There’s been a lot of discussion about preventable deaths in the U.S. such as drug-related deaths or suicides, which do account for a big proportion of this trend,” Papanicolas said. “However, we found that deaths from nearly all major categories are increasing.”
People just aren't going to the doctor cause it costs too much...thanks, free market!
There was a case of a self employed carpenter in Queens, NY. He won the lottery and splurged on getting a checkup.
He had cancer. If he'd lived in a place that had better healthcare he'd have been able to get treated earlier.
There's also a severe shortage of medical professionals ever since covid in all fields all over the country (but especially in rural and rapidly-growing areas). Good luck actually getting a medical appointment, and even if you can swing one standards have been weakened so that what would normally be a visit with a doctor (or the field's equivalent) is now a nurse practitioner or other less-educated title. If you want a "real" medical professional you need a referral, and again, good luck getting that appointment scheduled. Everyone working in medicine is overworked and burned out. Unless you're actively bleeding out, seeking medical attention, especially routine checkups and preventative screening, doesn't feel worth it anymore.
I'm not too surprised to see cancer deaths being one rare area that's decreasing; besides strides in treatment, most cancer sufferers are older and thus wealthier and also have Medicare, plus they also probably already have a primary care physician from pre-shortage. The hardest-hit in the medical care shortage are the young and people who have recently moved, and find themselves running into the wall of "no one is taking new patients."
Are they falling in China, Russia, Susan, Israel? only shit holes are our peers.
Leave Susan out of this.
You're right. She's really cleaned up her shit.
The name is Ginormica.
Can you please not use that term "Lazy Susan"? It's got racist and sexist connotations, and I'd really prefer you just not call it that.
Who's that racist towards? Susans? That's crazy. Where'd you get that?
Okay. I would just like you to not use the term.
You're right. You know what? It should be...
We should definitely start using the Ambitious Susan.
Yes, yes. Please spin the Indefatigable Susan.
Oh, can we have the Multifaceted Susan my way, please?
Yeah, spin the Industrious Susan.
Ooh, can you spin Ambidextrous Susan, please.
China yes, susan no. But susan is an outlier.
Sounds Sus.
Suddenly Susan
Well yeah, that's to be expected when healthcare has a paywall.
I'm curious, how much is a typical doctor's visit in the U.S. without insurance of any kind? Just a straight out of pocket sort of expense. $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000? I assume that it scales based on more complicated procedures or longer visits, but what about the basics, like going in for what you think is a bad cold or the flue, maybe a rash or something along those lines?
A bad cold or flu you probably wouldn't go to a doctor, just an urgent care clinic for some antibiotics or whatever. Probably run $100-$150 + cost of meds (hopefully generic).
If urgent care can't help, an out of pocket visit to primary care provider will be closer to $300 just to step in the door. Hospitals will put you on a payment plan if you can't front it.
My experience is that urgent care is significantly more expensive than primary care.
Ah, yes I've heard that about stateside hospitals. Apparently there's an entire department alongside accounting that deals with remediation of accounts payable. Less than ideal, but it sounds as though it costs a lot less that I'd been assuming this whole time.
As someone with insurance, it's complicated? So I pay per paycheck on the plan I want. I'm allowed to change this plan once a year or change electives, which will higher what I pay per paycheck or lower based on the plan. I have a wife and 2 kids, and for the plan just under the top it costs me about $600 a month just to be covered (and this is considered really good, I think). If any of us go to our doctors, there is a copay of $30. This copay is based on the plan I picked and have access to. It could be less if I wanted a higher plan or more if I wanted a lower one. This also applies to "urgent care" which is just a quick way to see a doctor if you're sick and can't get to your doctor. On top of this, normally you're allowed a few wellness visits per year with your doctor without copay since they are necessary. If you want to see a specialist the copay can be the same or slightly higher, all depends on your plan. The other kicker, you also need to make sure your doctor or the specialist is in network and takes your insurance. Otherwise, you pay more. Is this crazy yet or make sense?
Other things, hospital or emergency visits, will normally be $100 or way more because they don't want you to just go to the ER all the time unless absolutely needed. Wildcards, sometimes you need to see people and have no idea what you will pay in the end since sometimes they will do work or use something that isn't fully covered so you then get a bill a month later telling you insurance only covered this you owe the difference. It's up to you to figure out if that's correct or not then go down the path of fighting it. Normally, it's like the visit is 1k but insurance only covered $950, so you're now paying another $50 on top of the copay. This happens a lot and is frustrating because you really never know what you will pay in the end. If your married you both can have insurance and submit the remaining cost to the 2nd plan to see what they cover. On top of this, prescriptions have copays as well and have rates based on what the drug is. If you get generic brand it's normally less, if they don't have a generic brand you may be lucky and can get the name brand for the generic pricing because they don't have it.
This is just scratching the surface, I guess to answer your question it's $30 per visit, but that can change based off above. Also, is it really $30 if I'm also paying $600 per month? Another thing, you can't just not have insurance. If you don't, you will have to pay a penalty on your taxes for the time not covered. If you don't have a job your still required to get a plan and from what I've heard those plans can be 1k or more a month for someone who doesn't even have a job which makes total sense!
"Wildcards, sometimes you need to see people and have no idea what you will pay in the end since sometimes they will do work or use something that isn’t fully covered so you then get a bill a month later telling you insurance only covered this you owe the difference. It’s up to you to figure out if that’s correct or not then go down the path of fighting it."
This alone would get my hackles up, let alone paying $600+/month for uncertain coverage of treatments and prescriptions. Moreso, it would rub me the wrong way to have someone in my life who was unable to pay in and left up the creek with no paddle. The bit about a tax penalty for absence of coverage is a bit much, does the government really need to kick someone when they're down? Best of luck to you, it sounds as though you have it well in hand, but I don't envy you the task.
You can make sure your doctor is in network, but if someone bills you for other services like an anaesthetists, radiologist or labwork, they may not be and you could get a surprise bill for thousands of dollars.
Wildcards, sometimes you need to see people and have no idea what you will pay in the end since sometimes they will do work or use something that isn’t fully covered so you then get a bill a month later telling you insurance only covered this you owe the difference.
You can request preauthorizations for an estimate. I always try to request those. Not always practical, however, especially when it's urgent.
It’s up to you to figure out if that’s correct or not then go down the path of fighting it.
Fighting it is the worst. It's a 3-body problem—you, the insurance, the provider—and you're caught in the middle. You can't just tell anyone in plain language "my insurance covers preventative care cost-free, so why am I being charged for this?" They force you to do the detective work, and they don't make it easy. You basically have to know billing codes better than the billers and tell everyone to use correct ones. The billing codes aren't necessarily printed on billing statements or claims (mine didn't have them). Their meanings & provisions are unexplained. The patient has no reason to understand them or know they exist. Infuriating system.
This is just scratching the surface
You didn't mention deductibles. Before copay or coinsurance kicks in, your policy may require paying a deductible. Cost sharing provisions vary by policy.
High deductible insurance plans come with a health savings account, which is completely tax-free (no taxes on contributions, their earnings, or eligible distributions) for health expenses including any type of cost share (deductible, copay, coinsurance). As long as you pay health expenses with other funds & retain the receipts, it functions in practice as a smaller investment retirement account with less taxes than IRAs. Somewhat interesting.
Health insurance typically doesn't cover dental or vision: those need separate plans.
Another thing, you can’t just not have insurance. If you don’t, you will have to pay a penalty on your taxes for the time not covered.
Federally as of 2019 that was set to $0, so the amount ends up varying by state & could be $0.
if any blood tests are involved then that alone can send it into the 1000's. -I've had firsthand experience with that.
That's insane, I can't even begin to estimate the markup on those tests.
Eugenics? Cost cutting?
Darwinism.
At first glance I read: "afforable deaths"...
I have yacht payments and a mortgage on a third mansion to make. Don't make me pay for you to stay alive.
Oh no we don't have those in America. Dying is expensive, but don't worry the government won't get a penny of that as an estate tax
I did too!
A penny saved...
The numbers will increase until Jan 2029, especially for people near 6th floor windows.
Definitely a symptom of the 1% hoarding all the wealth... there's a version of that "trickle down" theory Republicans seem to love so much. If you can barely afford groceries or housing - how do you expect people to be able to afford basic medical care and other things that keep people from teetering off the edge?
Workers are paid like shit and burnt out - so lots of people do bare minimum at work to get by. I don't blame them. A society attempting to function like that ends up with holes all over the place that make everything worse and decimate any kind of safety nets for lower and middle class families. Corporations and government put up all their red tape bullshit that seems to be done solely to exhaust people and make them want to give up.
And one of the most stupid things of them all - you now have dumb fuck Republicans openly shouting from the hilltops that vaccines are evil and to not trust doctors....
Yeah, about that reporter...
He fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
That’s because we’re a regressing country
it's SO weird to be someone who grew up in America and has now spent about 25 years back home. i cannot understate the powerful effect of the mindset of "being an American".
I’m unfortunately still here and even I haven’t a fucking clue
*civilization
Bollocks
*county
Civilization isn't regressing. This is just one shithole country getting shittier.