LIFE EXPECTANCY RANKINGS AND THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE DEBATE:

LIFE EXPECTANCY is a term that seeks to apply information from the past to predict what might happen in the future. This time tested statistical average has grown in stature year after year and is now one of the leading performance metrics within the current American healthcare reform debate. If Americans lived longer than the rest of the people in the world there may be no debate at all, but when you spend twice as much on Healthcare as anyone else and you can't even crack the top 30 in the world life expectancy rankings, it's no wonder the country wants to know what's going on. Adding fuel to the fire is who some of these countries with higher life expectancy rankings are. The people of Jordan and Cyprus now live longer than Americans do and even Cuba is barely a year behind, all of which has caused Healthcare Systems in some countries to become visible sources of national pride...Can a Life Expectancy Olympics be far behind?

Life expectancy at birth, from a global perspective, is the average number of years a newborn infant would be expected to live if health and living conditions at the time of its birth remained the same throughout its life. It reflects the health of a country's people and is often used to measure the quality of healthcare they receive. Although Life Expectancy at birth is the standard most often used, it can be calculated from any age. It is a statistical average that considers all deaths equally and it doesn't care what people die from or where the death took place. The reason Life Expectancy is a poor way to evaluate Healthcare Systems in developed countries, especially a country as complex as the United States, is because the Cause of Death and where the Death took place can have a huge impact on the quality and cost of the healthcare received.

DOES AMERICA HAVE A NATIONAL HEALTHCARE PROBLEM OR IS IT REGIONAL:

Understanding the importance of Causes of Death can be as simple as asking yourself what would happen to Life Expectancy in Africa if they found a cure for Aids, or in Russia if Russian men stopped drinking Vodka, or in America if American's weren't so fat? But America is a complex country and you have to dig a little deeper than "Cheeseburgers" if you want to apply our Life Expectancy ranking in any meaningful way to either the quality or the cost of our Healthcare System. Take a closer look at the USA Maps below that display America's leading causes of death down to the County level. Note the dark gray areas that identify the highest concentration of deaths for each individual cause and decide for yourself whether you think where you live has something to do with what you're likely to Die from? ( Blood Poisoning Concentration is Red )

Heart Disease

All Cancer

Stroke

Lung Disease

Accidents

Diabetes

Alzheimer's

Influenza-Pneumonia

Kidney Disease

Blood Poisoning

Suicide

Liver Disease

Hypertension

Parkinsons Disease

Homocide

ALL CAUSES OF DEATH DON'T RELATE TO HEALTHCARE:

We don't dispute the need for Healthcare reform, but we've seen some convincing Data that would vault the USA to the top of the World Life Expectancy rankings if Traffic Accidents, Homicides and other non Healthcare related Causes of Death were standardized between countries. Traffic Accidents is the big one accounting for as many as 40,000 deaths per year, but that's more of a population density issue than anything directly related to Healthcare. Most traffic fatalities occur on the open road at high rates of speed miles away from healthcare facilities and there is a lot more of that going on in the United States than in Tokyo, Rome, London, or Paris.

The Infant Mortality data alone is powerful evidence of the value the American Healthcare System places on a human life. As American's we're proud of the fact our Doctors not only try to save them all, we count them all too, no matter what they weigh and even if they only take a single breath of life. I'd rather not describe how other countries define a live birth or what determines who they try to save, but if you want to bump up your Life Expectancy Stats improving Infant Mortality will certainly help you do it. Having said that there is one area related to Infant Mortality that we do need to continue to improve and that's Teen Pregnancies, but I doubt even the most adamant supporters of Healthcare reform would blame that on the system.

American Healthcare does need to improve. It costs too much, it excludes too many and the Insurance Industry must accept more social responsibility. We have some powerful data related to these metrics we'll be sharing with you soon. But for now we wanted to clear up some of the misconceptions many people have regarding the relationship between America's World Life Expectancy Ranking and the cost and quality of its Healthcare System. The reasons for reform are real and they need to be addressed, but with all the Medical Research and Innovation we share with the rest of the world and the number of foreign Doctors we educate in our Universities, it's hard to imagine how what the rest of the world does has much, if anything, to do with us.

SPECIAL CHARTS AND MAPS TO ENHANCE YOUR EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE:

There are hundreds of other Charts and Maps all over this Website. They'll provide you with meaningful Health data for virtually every country in the world and every State in America. We've also prepared a special series of Charts and Maps especially for this Healthcare debate. We'll be adding more each week to assist each of you in forming your own opinion on this important subject, but we've built a Special Chart from our Database we'd like to share with you now.

We call this special chart our USA DATA GRID and it's designed to provide you with the maximum amount of information in a limited amount of space. Click on the Thumbnail Icon below to learn about American Causes of Death by Age, Gender and Population. It's a very "Smart Chart" but don't let it intimidate you, you'll master it in no time and when you do you'll have a very powerful tool that you'll refer to over and over again.