Talking point: Life expectancy/Healthcare rebuttal

[Ferd]

Talking point: Life expectancy = Healthcare rebuttal

So Walks in Islam has proven his capacity to regurgitate the Liberal mantra that America needs healthcare reform because the Brits live longer than us.
The argument liberals make is that America doesn’t have a better healthcare system than those industrialized countries that have nationalized healthcare because they live longer than we do.
Let me be kind. It’s Hooey! It’s a pile of Pelosi!

Sure Healthcare is one factor in a nation’s life expectancy. If a country can’t supply basic services, you die from getting a nail in your foot. But healthcare is just one factor. AND it isn’t even the major factor! I doubt anyone would suggest that Haiti has a healthcare system that is twice as good as Swaziland but if you live in Haiti you can expect to live twice as long! There are other factors. In Swaziland, such a large portion of the adult population has AIDS that their life expectancy as a nation is below 32 years. This is less about the healthcare system than it is about a nation of people who have a culture that is rife with dangerous sexual behavior. It is killing that nation!

Additionally America ranks well behind some European nations in infant mortality. Studies have shown that while in some instances this is true, it is also true that America considers every live birth including those that aren’t viable where some European countries don’t consider these births in their figures. Each nation is responsible for their own statistics and some of this variation is a result of the methodology used.

Further a much larger portion of the puzzle that is a nation’s Life expectancy is more closely aligned with the lifestyle in that nation. The French walk everywhere. Americans are virtually sedentary. Americans consume vastly more red meat than most other nations, Americans eat vastly more calories than most other nations, Americans eat vastly more calories from fat than other nations. Study after study proves that caloric intake is actually the key indicator for longevity and that doesn’t mean the more you eat the longer you live!

But let’s consider things that matter to the average person.
If you are 53 years old and your doctor tells you, you need a hip replacement do you want to live in America or Brittan? Remember, the liberals want you to focus on the fact that Brits live about 11 months longer than Americans….
BUT if you are 53 and need a hip replacement, you wait 6 months to a year in the UK to get it.
In America you wait 16 days.

Who has the better Healthcare?

If you are a woman in America and you are diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, you and your doctor decide your course of treatment and that treatment begins almost immediately. If you live in the UK a board makes a decision and treatment is often delayed for as much as 6 months. In many instances that board can decide that your cancer is too advanced and the cost benefit for treating you doesn’t make financial sense. In that case you are denied the treatment.

Who has the better Healthcare? American Liberals want you to focus on the fact that the Brits outlive us by 11 months…. But if you are 33 years old and have a couple of little ones at home, and your doctor tells you, that you have breast cancer I suspect all the sudden that 11 month difference at the age of 79 seems an awful long way off and not entirely relevant to your situation.

If you live in Canada and break an ankle (like our own Brother Ron) you have to get approval from some bureaucratic board to have surgery. It can take months to get that approval and by then, your ankle will heal wrong and make surgery both more difficult and less successful. In America, you and our doctor decide the treatment and you get surgery before the body messes things up. Now the good news in Canada, the Government mandates that the company you work for has to keep right on paying you while you aren’t working and the government is deciding if you get surgery so you will likely be just fine sitting at home. But consider the economic impact of that? It’s NUTS.

You tell me who has the better healthcare?

Then consider if you live in any of these countries with nationalized healthcare, if you need to go to Physical Therapy, you have to get a government bureaucrat to determine if you get to go, when you can go and where you go. In America, you and your doctor decide, you make a call and go see the PT that week.

Anybody gonna try to suggest that the guys begging some bureaucrat for some PT time has better Healthcare?

Not ME!

So the bottom line, Healthcare and Life expectancy are not directly related. There are so many other factors that impact a person’s life expectancy… Things as varied as what they eat, how much time they spend in a car, how their country collects mortality data…. Healthcare is just one in a very long list of things that matter when it comes to figuring out who is going to live longer.

Now all you Pelosites, stick that in your corncob pipe and smoke it!