US healthcare still stupidly expensive, with pathetic outcomes, study finds

I think generally Americans are happier dying. They want this differentiator between themselves and other countries. They genuinely enjoy the misery it brings to the poorer elements of their society. This is not accidental it appears to be designed that way. Investigating it is a waste of time and not going to change anything until Americans actually want change. (and not just "want" in terms of making facebook posts about wanting it)

Zero mention of wait times in the US compared to other countries. Pretty sure that's the chief complaint in most countries that have free-ish healthcare.

And not just the US healthcare, but the US education also...

Yeah but have you considered how good it is for the US gdp!

It's to be expected from a for-profit system.

I want to agree with this, but these studies usually make a big mistake - they don't control out for the non healthcare reasons for low life expectancy.

Americans drive cars and most live in unwalkable places. These impart significant risks that the healthcare system, no matter how good, wouldn't impact.

Has anyone dug into this to identify whether they tried to account for built environment? Or food system?

I find it remarkable that most comments either criticizing the US healthcare system or expressing bewilderment at how Americans seemingly accept this have already been downvoted into dead territory.

It's hard not to see those downvotes as copium or cognitive dissonance given no arguments have been presented to the contrary.

Until the obesity problem is solved nothing will change. You can spend an unlimited amount of money - if people are morbidly obese it's game over.

US healthcare industry needs to drop more non-essential workers, and invest more in workers that produce value. the industry is so bloated no wonder its costs are high. Just to get my ears checked i had to be processed by 6 different people including phone systems doing precheck-ins. one person does the actual work!

Did someone do something that made people think that was going to change any time soon?

It continues to baffle me that Americans put up with such an inferior and expensive system.

There’s always talk of freedoms and being brave and being the best country in the world to live in, but very, very little effort of action to improve anything.

The French riot in the streets if a single day of their extremely generous (by US standards) leave is taken away. Meanwhile Americand can’t get off the couch to protest, or are afraid of their own government if they do.

That "stupidly expensive" system provides extremely nice campaign donations, executives bonuses, stock appreciation, dividend checks, and paychecks to a stupidly large number of insiders. Even when they're (say) just medical billing clerks, who'll spend their entire careers arguing with the Denial Departments at various insurance companies, without every seeing an actual patient.

The system is bad but the average American is obese, out of shape, and pre-diabetic, an atrocious diets and very little exercise. That doesn’t explain everything, but it does strain the system, which has to treat a lot more disease than a similar system with a fit population.

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