In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:

Peter wrote:

Exactly! All this machine counting nonsense. The bottom line is
that the average lifespan in the U.S. is well below that of countries
that may have far fewer state of the art diagnostic machines. What's
important is if there are enough machines available to perform the
medically indicated tests, not how many machines are available to
order tests that are not medically indicated.

"Lifespan" is a poor metric for measuring health care.

* A life can be ended before the medical profession has an opportunity to
intervene. Automobile accidents, gang warfare, executions under a lawful
warrant, wars, suicides, and so on.
* The "lifespan" measurement can be jiggled somewhat. In the U.S., a
severely premature infant is assaulted by a massive medical response.
Regrettably, these heroic techniques often fail. In France, the infant is
allowed to expire and is counted as "stillborn."

And the impact on lifespan is considerably greater when a 16 y/o is
killed in a driveby than when a 70 y.o lives to 75. Society implications
outside the control of docs contribute a lot to this. Same with infant
mortality since the US leads the leagues in teen births and the number
of very low birthweight babies among this group is higher. While medical
care can (and does) nibble a little around the edges through things like
trauma units and outreach programs to young mothers, much of this won't
go away until society changes.
Haven't done any of the math, but eyeballing the First World nations
who have the highest levels of teen pregnancy are largely those with the
worst infant mortality.

--
I want to find a voracious, small-minded predator
and name it after the IRS.
Robert Bakker, paleontologist