By Ezra
Man, I hate to make a point cutting against universal health care, but this study Kevin's citing in favor of the British system doesn't seem to show what he thinks it shows. The paper, to be published next week, basically found that once you control for factors like race, age, and income, Americans remain significantly less health than the British. We have more diabetes, more heart disease, more cancer, more hypertension. But the researchers themselves admit that "Britain's universal health-care system shouldn't get credit for better health," save for at the lowest income brackets.
One of the little-mentioned truths is that health care is given far more credit for health outcomes than it actually deserves, particularly once you hit a base level of access. So while it may be that beyond the British level of care you get diminishing returns, that's not really conclusive from this particular study. The question raised here is why Americans are so much sicker than others, and this gets trickier. A few hypotheses:
• Inequality and occupational stress are heavily correlated with poor health. There have been tons of studies finding that your placement within an organization's hierarchy is an excellent determinant of your heart's health, with greater autonomy leading to better outcomes. America is markedly unequal, and we place an impressive amount of emphasis on occupational achievement and success.
• Stress could do it as well. I don't have data on this, but I'd guess that Americans, for a variety of reasons, are simply more anxious than the English, or Europeans in general. Stress is heavily connected to all the illnesses being mentioned, so if someone could dig up a cross-national comparison of anxiety, it would be worth looking into.
• Diet, in particular high fructose corn syrup. The latter, which is heavily used in the US due to our corn subsidies, is very tough on the body, and quite a pal of diabetes (and thus heart disease, hypertension, etc). Given its near-ubiquity in our diet, it could play a surprisingly large role.
• Exercise. We're simply more auto based than most European countries, leading to less walking, and thus, worse health outcomes. This would operate independently of weight, and thus might not appear in simple comparisons of obesity rates.
Anyway, that's what I can come up with on the spot. Add to my list in comments.
