SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the If-you-can't-afford-the-medical-care dept.
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year—including many young and working-age adults—could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations:
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar to other wealthy nations, according to a new study led by a School of Public Health researcher.
Published in the journal PNAS Nexus, the study refers to these excess deaths as "Missing Americans," because these deaths reflect people who would still be alive if the US mortality rates were equal to its peer countries.
Comparing age-specific death rates in the U.S. and 21 other wealthy nations from 1933 through 2021, the authors find that current death rates in the US are much higher than other wealthy nations, and the number of excess U.S. deaths has never been larger.
"The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented in modern times," says study lead and corresponding author Jacob Bor, associate professor of global health and epidemiology.
Nearly 50 percent of all Missing Americans died before age 65 in 2020 and 2021. According to Bor, the level of excess mortality among working age adults is particularly stark. "Think of people you know who have passed away before reaching age 65. Statistically, half of them would still be alive if the US had the mortality rates of our peers. The US is experiencing a crisis of early death that is unique among wealthy nations."
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a sharp spike in mortality in the US—more so than in other countries—but the new findings show that the number of excess US deaths has been accelerating over the last four decades. Bor and colleagues analyzed trends in US deaths from 1933 to 2021, including the impact of COVID-19, and then compared these trends with age-specific mortality rates in Canada, Japan, Australia, and 18 European nations.
The US had lower mortality rates than peer countries during World War II and its aftermath. During the 1960's and 1970's, the US had mortality rates similar to other wealthy nations, but the number of Missing Americans began to increase year by year starting in the 1980's, reaching 622,534 annual excess U.S. deaths by 2019. Deaths then spiked to 1,009,467 in 2020 and 1,090,103 in 2021 during the pandemic. From 1980 to 2021, there were a total of 13.1 million Missing Americans.
[...] "We waste hundreds of billions each year on health insurers' profits and paperwork, while tens of millions can't afford medical care, healthy food, or a decent place to live," says study senior author Steffie Woolhandler, Distinguished Professor at the School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College, City University of New York. "Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations."
[...] "The US was already experiencing more than 600,000 Missing Americans annually before the pandemic began, and that number was increasing each year. There have been no significant policy changes since then to change this trajectory," he says.
"While COVID-19 brought new attention to public health, the backlash unleashed during the pandemic has undermined trust in government and support for expansive policies to improve population health," said Bor. "This could be the most harmful long-term impact of the pandemic, because expansion of public policy to support health is exactly how our peer countries have attained higher life expectancy and better health outcomes."
Journal Reference:
Jacob Bor, Andrew C Stokes, Julia Raifman, et al., Missing Americans: Early death in the United States—1933–2021, PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 6, June 2023, pgad173, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad173
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @12:26AM (7 children)
How much of it is the opiod crisis, with fentanyl acting as fuel on the fire? Also, a week social safety net compared to these other countries, and that might be related.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tekk on Friday November 17 2023, @03:59AM (3 children)
Related to the latter is a sort of fatalism/"opting into" earlier death. Their cutoff age for "early death" is retirement age, 65. When my grandparents and great grandparents turned 65 they had pensions, investments, social security checks which I imagine at least covered utilities, they owned the houses they lived in, etc. They were in situations where it was possible (and normal!) to have a comfortable retirement. For an awful lot of people my parents' age there won't be a retirement with "golden years", it'll be when you're too sick to work you stop working. I won't be surprised if by the time I hit retirement age Social Security and Medicare have been replace with privatized "Oh, you weren't plowing that paycheck whose money was all going to living expenses into your retirement account? Too bad." and the situation's even worse. It's harder to justify "I want to live a long, healthy life" when the end of that life is still working with arthritic joints to put food on the table.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday November 18 2023, @04:07PM (2 children)
That's what you get for voting for Fascists like Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes and especially Trump. We deserve our pitiful legislators.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday November 19 2023, @05:05PM (1 child)
My generation and the one after it don't, thanks. It would be almost a decade after Reagan took office before I'd even be born.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday November 22 2023, @12:44AM
That makes you old enough to have voted for President Shrub, whose inattentiveness caused 911, followed by the start of a 20 year war, followed by a very stupid war against the man who threatened to kill his daddy, followed by crashing the economy. In every step, the rich fascists like him got richer while workers all got poorer.
It's a national embarrassment that it's legal to hire an employee full time at a wage so low that he or she is eligible for poverty assistance. In my day your employer was expected to pay your bills, not the government. SNAP is welfare for McDonald's, not their employees.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 17 2023, @01:50PM
>a week social safety net
It takes much more than a week to get social safety net benefits in the U.S.
But, seriously, U.S. ideas about SSI and other social support seem to be more centered on punishing those who need it than actually helping them become productive (and healthy) members of society.
Now, on the healthy front, private healthcare insurance and healthcare providers seem to be in competition to provide worse healthcare to the sub-15% wealthiest than even Medicare gives the indigent...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday November 18 2023, @08:46AM
I'd say it's more a toxic mix of shitty to nonexistent healthcare for the most at-risk, poor worker-protection laws, poor consumer-protection laws (covering dangerously unhealthy foods and the like), and more, with an equally toxic side-order of guns, opioids, and other stuff.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday November 18 2023, @04:05PM
The opioid crisis has nothing to do with it. What DOES have to do with it is we are the only developed nation in the world that doesn't have socialized medicine. Medicine should NOT be part of capitalism. Everyone else has socialized medicine, we have Fascist medicine not unlike WWII Italy. No money, pauper? Die, damn you!
"But MEDICARE for the poor!" Medicare is horrible, my oldest daughter is disabled and on Medicare. It's single payer but NOT socialized medicine. This is the only nation in the world where people have to choose between insulin and food.
I am ashamed and disgusted by my country's refusal to socialize health care.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron