The Commonwealth Fund has produced its latest analysis of the effectiveness of healthcare systems in 10 Western countries. The above chart lays out the report’s key finding in one damning chart. America spends far, far more on healthcare per capita than does Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, the UK, Canada, or New Zealand. Yet, Americans have the shortest life expectancy among the ten countries tracked, and the highest rates of chronic disease:
To its credit, the mainstream American media has not completely ignored the new report. NBC, for example, reported the overall results pretty bluntly: “Based on the new findings, people in the U.S. die the youngest and experience the most avoidable deaths, even though the country spends nearly twice as much — about 18% of gross domestic product — on health care than any other nation ranked.”
That said, I suspect this will be blink-and-you’ll-miss-it coverage in the mainstream media; gone tomorrow like it never happened.
If there’s any chance that America’s chronic ill health gets more attention going forward, it will be thanks to the tireless efforts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In his most recent Youtube video, John Campbell presents clips of Kennedy speaking and adds his own comments.
Here are several of the most salient facts presented by Kennedy:
Eighteen percent of young Americans now have fatty liver disease. Fifty years ago, fatty liver disease was found only among hard-core alcoholics.
American girls are reaching puberty at earlier and earlier ages, almost certainly because of estrogen-mimicking chemicals in our food and in the environment.
Over forty percent of American teens have a mental health diagnosis.
An incredible seventy-seven percent of young Americans are unfit to serve in the US military.
Autism in children has been skyrocketing. Its incidence went from one child in ten thousand 70 years ago, to one child in fifteen hundred twenty years ago, to one child out of every thirty-three today. (In California one out of every twenty-two children is now autistic.)
While falling life expectancy is important, more important still are the skyrocketing rates of chronic disease: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, senility, respiratory and cardiac problems and cancers. Not only do these chronic conditions cause untold suffering, but they are stupendously expensive. RFK reports that America now spends four trillion dollars per year on the treatment of chronic diseases - that’s four MILLION MILLION dollars! Five times what the US (officially) spends on its military.
Though much of the media coverage places blame for the ill-health of America on America’s overpriced private healthcare model, it’s clearly only part of the problem. I would agree with Kennedy that the toxic effects of ultra-processed foods and the ubiquitous presence of toxins in the environment - including micro-particles of plastic now being found in virtually every part of the human body - are clearly central issues.
America’s various public health agencies have been remarkably uninterested in understanding or measuring the effects of either ultra-processed foods or environmental toxins. One could be forgiven for thinking they serve the interests of big Agri-biz and chemical manufacturers more than they serve the interests of the American people.
Particularly egregious is the obvious lack of any concerted effort to understand America’s skyrocketing rates of autism.
It’s also a given that a public health system truly concerned about the well-being of its population would have put far more effort into measuring and trying to understand the shockingly high rate of excess deaths in America during and since the COVID pandemic. I suspect the US government would prefer not to know what is causing hundreds of thousands of Americans to die in excess of normal.
More power to RFK and the Commonwealth Fund in pushing America to face this key issue. It would almost be worth suffering through four more years of Donald Trump if Robert Kennedy were put in charge of cleaning up America’s public health disaster and Tulsi Gabbard were tasked with ending America’s endless wars.
PS: The national differences in life expectancy are far from trivial.
The following chart was derived from Commonwealth Fund data.
It shows the life expectancy of American women to be seven years less than that of Korean or Japanese women. Just by moving North of the border to Canada, a young American could add four years to her expected lifespan:
I typed: proportion of global pharmaceutical companies in USA and darling AI found me this:
56% of global market capitalization belongs to U.S. drugmakers
9 out of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies by market capitalization are from the United States
The United States has the largest national pharmaceutical market worldwide
Think there might be a correlation between American ill-health and these numbers?
77% young Americans not fit for active duty!!
American Healthcare
Where did all that Covid money 💰 go?
The most expensive and our society is less healthy
Now than back in the 1960s.
Personally think vaxxines for children is a huge factor.
Of course there are many reasons why people are
Less healthy now than then.
Our medical community needs serious improvements and changes.