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."

A better metric for the evaluation of health care is survivability after
diagnosis. The five-year survival rate for breast cancer after diagnosis, if
I remember correctly, in the U.S. is 95%. In the UK, it is 58%. The U.S. is
at the top - or near it - in virtually all chronic (and acute) survivability
measures (heart disease, diabetes, all forms of cancer, and so on).

Are you saying that Americans bring onto themselves deadly diseases so
badly that they don't live longer despite some impressive higher survival
rate after diagnosis? Or are American doctors slow to make a diagnosis
before it looks good for the patient to survive the diagnosis? Or do
American breast cancer victims incur expenditure of megabucks to live 6
rather than 4.5 years after diagnosis? How about a combination of
these? (Overweightness favors development of breast cancer, colon
cancer and cancer in general as well as heart disease, and strokes
unless heart disease or cancer hits first.) These are another American
problems that I have yet to mention in this thread before now, among the
many other specifically-USA problems.

But how about in comparison to Scotland, since I heard that the Scots
like to eschew eating things that grow in the ground (such as parsnips and
carrots)?

--
- Don Klipstein )