AMERICANS LIVE 4%-6% SHORTER LIVES YET SPEND THE MOST ON HEALTH CARE

WHY THE 3-5 YEAR LONGEVITY GAP IN THE USA?

In a September 1, NY Times piece entitled: “To Explain Longevity Gap, Look Past Health System”(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/22tier.html?scp=1&sq=longevity&st=cse), author, John Tierney, calls on the expertise of prominent demographer, Samuel H. Preston, who attempts to absolve the US health care system for the fact that US citizens lives are shorter than in other nations. Preston“finds no evidence to blame the health care system for the longevity gap between (the US) and other industrialized countries,” states Tierney. “The US…does a pretty good job of identifying major diseases,” states Preston, who is well known for a correlation between a nation’s economic expansion and the longevity of its citizens, referenced in academic texts as the “Preston Curve”. According to the author, the problem in longevity for US citizens, who will live about three years less, than citizens of other Western industrialized nations, and five years less than in Japan, is because they “get sick more often than people in Europe and other industrialized countries.” Preston is quoted as stating that the difference is due to the “high rates of…death among middle aged Americans, chiefly from heart disease and cancer. He identifies the causes, stating: Americans are “fatter” and “smoke more”, and, I might add, are probably exposed to more chemical pollutants . To support his hypothesis of a direct correlation between higher GDP and longevity, (See: the Preston Curve at: http://www.ganfyd.org/images/1/17/PrestonCurves.png) Dr. Preston argues that, it is not health care that is responsible for the gap since once Americans become sick, data suggest they receive “better treatment” and “the mortality rates” from “breast cancer and prostate cancer have been declining significantly faster in the US than in other industrialized countries”.

That seems a poor bargain for the US citizen, who on average has between three and five fewer healthy years in later life—and is more likely to get cancer and circulatory disease than in other industrialized nations.

Does he expect that Americans take any satisfaction from the fact that they will live shorter less healthy lives, but when afflicted earlier in life than other nation’s citizenry, they will “survive” longer in hospital, or as out-patients due to “superior care”? I think not.

The problem of the longevity gap seems clear, other industrialized nations all of which support some form of universal health care, and consequently have a stake in the over-all health of their citizenry, have an economic interest in preventing disease and encouraging a healthy lifestyle. While in the US, without that incentive, the government focus is on the health of business. It favored (for many decades) the health of the tobacco industry over the incidence of lung cancer of its citizens; the health of giant agribusiness (producer of food products loaded with animal fats, cheap sugars and salt) over the obesity of consumers, the health of industries which pollute air and water, versus the breast and colon cancers of its people. It is clear, as Calvin Coolidge so succinctly said: “the business of America is business” (and what is implied: America’s first concern is not the well-being of its citizens).

So this we can agree on with Professor Preston, the longevity gap it’s not all the fault of the health care system (which as it is constituted now, prefers to treat actual disease --and maximize profit) than to accept lower fees for disease prevention).

Perhaps when the American public more fully comprehends these facts and consequence to their own lives they may begin to pressure Congress for a more balanced focus--one that includes a more robust concern for the health of it citizens.

Get the picture?

rjk