07/13/2011
Austin FraktThis is a FAQ entry. See the main FAQ index for others.
There are many posts on this subject under the quality, health care quality, and access tags. (There are likely more under other tags too.) The following is a sample.
- Start with Aaron Carroll’s excellent series on this topic. The intro post links to the rest. [many charts]
- Cancer mortality rates by country and over time [charts]
- Why the ER is used so frequently, even by those who are insured [chart]
- Health outcomes report cards by country [charts]
- Cost-related access by country [charts]
by Dana Sack on August 14th, 2012 at 00:31
All the metrics for comparing health care systems are heavily impacted by obesity. America has a fast and effective health care system, but it does not prevent obesity. If all overweight Americans lost 10% or 20% of their weight, it would make a huge impact on mortality, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, musculo-skeletal problems.
There would be substantial savings in pills for hypertension, gout, cholesterol, and stomach acid, injections for diabetes, and inhalers for asthma. Many fewer stress tests and related cardio testing would be required.
Attacking weight would attack all the negative metrics, including costs.