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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: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday November 17 2023, @11:54AM
It comes down to this: In the US, absolutely everything is gleefully sacrificed to the Almighty Dollar, and has been for at least 40 years now.
For instance, why do families not live together on small family farms like you did? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but most of the small family farms no longer exist. The cost of growing / raising whatever your family farm produced has gotten so much higher than the price the farmers can get for it that they inevitably are repo'd by the bank. For example, if you try to get into chicken farming, the chicken company will force you to make massive upgrades that will put you into heavy debt, then refuse to pay you enough for your chicken to possibly get you out of it, never mind what they promised when you took on that debt. Meanwhile, Grandpa and Grandma can't stick around in their homes or with their families because Medicare will pay for a nursing home but until recently at least hasn't paid for somebody in the family to care for them at home, and every adult in the family has to have income to make ends meet so they do the only thing they can do, namely stick them in a nearby nursing home and hope they can visit and call enough to remain emotionally close.
As for what's happened to young people: Starting around 40 years ago, working families that used to do pretty well thanks to dad's union job stopped making ends meet, because dad's union got busted and he was forced to take much lower pay. Mom went into the work force, which helped them manage for a while, but wages never kept up with productivity or prices so eventually that failed. So they tapped their main asset, their home, for cash. In 2005-2010, that ran out too. So they tapped their kids, who were already tapped out thanks to their wages being even worse. So now their kids can't afford to have kids of their own. Our economy has eaten the proverbial seed corn and then are writing think pieces about why there aren't as many babies as their used to be.
Your youth was funded by a very different kind of government and economy than the one we live in now. And until our political class decides to abandon the mantra of "greed is good" and stop seeing the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the measurement of all that is valuable in the world, we'll continue to tear ourselves apart.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin