American Exceptionalism, yet again

The 4 1/2 readers of this humble blog are well aware that life expectancy in the U.S. is  lower than that of other wealthy countries, even though we spend twice as much on health care. It ' s right on top, every time you come here. The bad news is that the utterly inept response of the U.S. to the Covid-19 pandemic made the gap even worse.Here ' s an analysis by Steven Woolf in BMJ. Since people tend to complain when I link to stories about the U.S. in journals published in furrin lands, I point out that Woolf is a good old Merkin who works at Virginia Commonwealth University in the capital of the Confederate States of America. Here ' s a bit of the abstract (emphasis mine):Between 2010 and 2018, the gap in life expectancy between the US and the peer country average increased from 1.88 years (78.66v 80.54 years, respectively) to 3.05 years (78.74v 81.78 years).Between 2018 and 2020, life expectancy in the US decreased by 1.87 years (to 76.87 years), 8.5 times the average decrease in peer countries (0.22 years), widening the gap to 4.69 years. Life expectancy in the US decreased disproportionately among racial and ethnic minority groups between 2018 and 2020, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations, respectively.In Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations, reductions in life expectancy were 18 and 15 times the average in peer countries, respectively. Progress since 2010 in reducing the gap in life expe...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs