Nope, because I have a higher point total than you. That makes me a superior human being

Looked this one up:

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_is_the_life_expectancy_in_cuba

76 years and nine months

not bad but still a full year on average behind the terrible American health care system.

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_is_the_life_expectancy_in_usa

77 years and 8 months

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_is_the_life_expectancy_in_russia

65 years and 8 months

The socialist paradise not doing so well, but they were ahead of the USA for a short time in the 1950's.

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_is_the_life_expectancy_in_sweden

80 years 6 months

http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/what_is_the_life_expectancy_in_japan

82 years 0 months

But if you really want to live a long time, screw the healthcare system; eat more fish.

Russia is no longer socialist. C'mon guys, This is the second time you've tried to pull this.

yeah, no offence intended Strat and Draug, perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part. I was referring to your (Strat's) comment: "- for myself, I'll continue to improve myself, bring in larger and larger paychecks, and laugh quietly to myself when the armchair socialists continue to bemoan how the evils of capitalism won't fairly compensate them for their invaluable skills as retail clerks and 'artists'."

I'm not sure what to make of your opinion of artists, retail clerks or socialists, and I'm not really worried about it since I don't fall neatly into any of those categories and though my salary is well below average, it never occurred to me to complain about it. But I'm never surprised when someone with money espouses the firmly-held conviction that they deserve everything they have.

What I find troubling is the sentiment that you, an undoubtedly intelligent, talented, motivated and hardworking individual, ie someone capable of much more than the average, can't come up with any better justification for the Capitalist system vis-a-vis USSR-style communism than the notion that a person with your particular qualities not only deserves your condition of ever-increasing financial security, but that those who do not unite the same exemplary qualities as you are deservedly denied access to such basic needs as health care and quality education. The great achievement of the Capitalist system is that it not only rewards the "virtuous" but it also punishes the lazy, unlucky, untalented or just plain stupid. And I would simply say that if this sentiment, which unquestionably underpins your comment, is the best we can do by way of a justification for the Capitalist system, then maybe we'd better reconsider some things.

Likewise, if the personal affront of my phrase "game the system" is the only objection you've got to what I said, maybe we should reconsider some things.

We are aware that it's no longer socialist. We're not morons. the socialists just screwed it up so much that its still below where the rest of the world is. Plus, there are some pretty out of the way places in Russia that may skew the data because there isn't much anything in the form of healthcare there (eg, some parts of Siberia).

Also, Putin, I highly doubt that any Cuban med school is better than Johns Hopkins or Georgetown, just to name two. The universities in the west are the best in the world, with only Chinese, Japanese, and Indian universities competing with them. And I would think more international students come to the United States than to Cuba.

I am also aware that our healthcare system is screwed up, but we're talking about the doctors, not the framework they operate under. Our doctors are the best - because our system is so incredibly expensive, it attracts the best international doctors. I want to see a Cuban or Russian hospital better than the Mayo Clinic or New York-Presbyterian

Didn't mean to refer to it as a socialist country at this point, but it does have a socialist past. This socialist past is still relevant because they were socialist from 1917 to the 50's, and from the 1950's to the 1990's. In those times they had a shorter life expectancy rate than the USA.

If we go on to talk about infant mortality:

Cuba has a slightly better infant mortality rate 6.1 to the USA's 6.4, but a significantly lower birth rate 11.7 to the USA's 13.3. So basically they are doing a little bit better job in that regard if we realize thatt hey are doing a little bette with a much smaller work load in this one area.


Again Cuba has the problem that other socialist countries have had. It's bleeding 1.5 out of a thousand people to emigration each year as opposed to the USA gaining 4.25 out of a thousand each year (I'm assuming that is only counting legal immigration). It's hard to sell the socialist paradise of Cuba if most people are leaving when they get the chance.

@mcbry
So are you suggesting that the lazy should be rewarded? Or even treated equally? If you are lazy, you deserve to fall through the cracks. And communism takes out the profit motivation in everything. If your job is planned out for you, and everything in life is guaranteed and equal, what is your motivation to achieve, to innovate?

According to the CIA, US ranks 49th in the world for life expectancy. Cuba 53rd. Again, if that's the best we can do, maybe we should reconsider some things.

My core issue was with the "game the system" phrase. Welfare mommas who keep pumping out more babies so they can get bigger and better welfare checks to support their lazy-ass boyfriend of the moment are gaming the system.

As far as the healthcare aspect... Hospitals are required to care for *anyone* who walks through their doors regardless of ability to pay. We have a welfare system (broken because of the asses who abuse it, but still) for those who are less physically or mentally fortunate and need assistance. You act like none of these things are in place. The only people I think who don't deserve basic minimally life essentials are the lazy who can work but would rather live off someone else's dime. To them, I say "get the fuck up and at least try to get a job." If they would at least seriously look for work (I understand unemployment is stioll double digits in most places) I'd be more forgiving. But so many of them would rather collect a welfare check or two (or 20 or 30 with the rampant fraud). Honestly, I'd love to see a return to the old work houses of the 19th century.

**more people are leaving than are coming**

rather than most people are leaving

If we are in the top 50, then we are in the top 25% of the world.

"According to the CIA, US ranks 49th in the world for life expectancy. Cuba 53rd. Again, if that's the best we can do, maybe we should reconsider some things"

Yeah like eating more fish and fewer hamburgers.

CA +1 - although I did have a peppercorn burger from Chili's for lunch. But I had it with a side salad, notthe fries, and I had low-fat vinagrette dressing too!

Basically there is more to life expectancy than your health care system. Which was what I was poking fun at with my figures. I grew up eating pickled herring. I still love the stuff. It's a cultural favorite in Scandinavian countries (who typically have long life expectancies). Go figure, it appears that non fried fish is really good for you. The Japanese eat a lot of fish as well. There was a noticable difference in the circulatory systems of American soldiers and Japanese soldiers in autopsies done in WWII. This was a difference among men who were mostly in their twenties.

You can't just say "look at the life expectancy here, it's because they have a terrible healthcare system." There is more that goes into life expectancy than merely health care.

Keep eating those salads Draug.

@Draugnar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_USSR

wikipedia is the worst info source ever

Evidence?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst_Source_Ever

CA +1

Hey CA and Draug, if the US being in the top 25% is good enough for you, we have nothing more to talk about. The fact is 100% of the countries that rank higher than the US have socialized medicine, and that's enough information for me to reconsider some things that have nothing to do with fish. Consider infant mortality, the results are about the same but US and Cuba are reversed relative to the life expectancy data. And it's not affected by fish intake.

I agree Draug that everyone who is able and who wants to receive benefits from the govt should be found a job, not unlike the work houses you mention. They had something similar going on back in the USSR. They called it the obligation to work. And perhaps we should consider taking children away from people who meet certain conditions of dependency and inability to provide for their children. Under no circumstances should the children be denied proper health care, and BTW, admittance to the emergency room is not proper health care.

"We're not morons. the socialists just screwed it up so much that its still below where the rest of the world is."

More like, life expectancy took a huge hit when capitalism was restored (look at the stats from the 1980s and compare them to the 1990s). Plus Russia was never a rich country, so it's not surprising that it's lower. It has also struggled with the issue of alcoholism. You're proud of yourselves because US has a higher expectancy that countries at a lower stage of development and wealth. Wow.

Look at the meteoric rise in life expectancy which occurred after socialist governments came to power - China, for example.

sorry if i'm being slow, but i don't see how it follows that the reason america lags behind other nations statistically because of the inherent disparity in a capitalist system. correlation is not causation: the reasoning i see is "america has a capitalist system, americans have a low life expectancy = capitalist system is a failed system. it seems this disregards key points involving style of living. i don't know the stats but i'd be willing to bet americans consume more mcdonalds than any other people on earth :) that's just one example of the multitude of things that could be a more relavent cause of death than economic disparity.
in fact, in my not inconsiderable experience with different health care systems, i've seen first hand the superiority of american healthcare. i once got quite sick on holiday in rome. i went to the hospital, and (presumably because i was a tourist) got the best they had to offer -- my own room while others slept 6 to a room. the room had nothing in it, and i spent 4 days with nothing but an iv andpromises of a painful procedure. when i returned to america, i was given a machine that cured me *instantly.* any hospital in america has one, and it is constantly loaned to people who need it. this machine cannot be found anywhere in italy.
also i've known people who've suffered in universal care systems. my english grandmother, for one, died because of inadequate care from a very preventable disorder. although these systems are "free" they are far from better, and they do not properly treat disorders that are quick fixes in the us.
i think, seeing the flaws of the us system, americans have developed a romanticized version of universal health care, but they fail to recognize that it has its own flaws. everyone does not get the best coverage, everyone falls to the lowest level.
btw, i don't necessarily believe anything i just said, but i think it's an interesting argument :)

Even the part about your grandmother?

I live in Canada and I have never received sub-par care, nor have I hear of anyone I know receiving sub-par care. I'm sure it happens from time to time, but if it were more common I would have heard about it more often. I have also never had to pay for emergency health care. I don't know anything about the Italian or English health care systems, but if you want to see a socialized health care system that actually works, check out Canada.

Hopefully Harper doesn't wreck a good thing.

anecdotes were 100% true, cm. i do support health reform, though, so the conclusion i drew was mostly for the sake of debate :)

Is anyone really going to argue the US system is superior when a guy in Arizona who had been waiting for a life saving liver transplant was dropped from insurance coverage as soon as a relative designated their liver for transplant? Now he will die unless he comes up $200,000, and that's only if he manages to get at the top of the transplant list again - which is unlikely. How is that even close to the inconvenience of having 6 people to a room? It's not as if patient density isn't a problem in privately-run hospitals here.

And the stereotype of McDonalds eating Americans is overplayed. Fast food is eaten everywhere in large amounts. Someone needs to explain why the US is the only country that follows the US model, and yet their performance is lower than other rich countries with socialized medicine.

We invest zero in prevention, we don't offer free checkups and then we wonder why crap is more expensive later. We don't even cover diagnostic tests, so people don't even know what they have for years until it escalates. My wife hasn't been able to a diagnostic test on a chronic condition because insurance won't cover it.

This doesn't happen in other countries.

Frankly, we have socialized medicine in America as well. It's just that it's subsidized through the bankruptcy courts, which strikes me as spectacularly inefficient. As regards the role health insurance companies play, ostensibly corporations are chartered for the public good. It's why we grant them ersatz citizenship. So, how does it work for the public good to have a parasitical middleman like for-profit insurance companies, with all of their incentives to deny coverage and damn few incentives to grant it, to have such a stranglehold on the health care system?

Oh, and Draugnar, I don't know about you, but I'm much less worried about the maybe 10,000 welfare recipients chiseling a few thousand bucks out of the system by having "surplus babies" (which is kind of an offensive concept to begin with) to lead lives on the edge of poverty than I am the larger gaming of the system that those who invoke the bugaboo of "lazy welfare recipients" turn a blind eye towards, apparently because they don't seem to mind white men in suits getting welfare nearly as much as they mind poor people getting welfare.