Alan Stallion
Civil Rights Advocate
First of all, our infant mortality rate is one of the worst, if not the worst, of all developed countries.
Let's look at two countries, the United States and Japan. Japan has the highest life expectancy of any country in the world. They also spend less on healthcare than most industrialized countries. In fact, they only spend about 1/3 of what we spend in the US. So what are some of the contributing factors?
Murder Rate: US rate is five times that of Japan.
Smoking Rate: Japans is double that of the US. (This is the one area the US has done very well at from a healthcare POV)
Obesity: US rate of Obesity is ten times higher than Japan. Over 30% in the US versus 3% in Japan.
Infant Mortality: The US Infant Mortality Rate is more than double that of Japan.
Keep in mind a key difference between the United States and Japan is that Japan is a very homogeneous nation, whereas the U.S. is a large immigrant nation (legal or illegal), so we acquire people who are from nations where life expectancy isn't as high and may carry over diseases or habits that lead to diseases (such as smoking). Plus, if they come here illegally, they may be less likely to make health care visits for fear of deportation, so health will decrease and disease will spread due to neglect of care.
On top of that, doctors and hospitals have to take out insurance on themselves for protection from lawsuits. They'll often administer unneeded tests just to cover themselves, but even that won't secure themselves from being sued. The costs of this liability of course get passed onto the general public. While there surely are legitimate lawsuits, many I believe are fraudulant. We need tort reform to help reduce the costs from lawsuit lotteries.