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In today’s news we learn that American doctors deliver a 24-week old baby that is the size of a soda can. Look up the data on what other countries do at this level. Second, once you adjust for the things that doctors have no control over (the risky behavior and accidents Americans endure), the US lands at the top of  life expectancy statistics for OECD countries (slide 18).

In other news from the AP, half of America is now poor. I won’t throw my considerable pennies at that claim, or reasons for it, but check out this part of the article:

The struggling Americans include Zenobia Bechtol, 18, in Austin, Texas, who earns minimum wage as a part-time pizza delivery driver. Bechtol and her 7-month-old baby were recently evicted from their bedbug-infested apartment after her boyfriend, an electrician, lost his job in the sluggish economy.

After an 18-month job search, Bechtol’s boyfriend now works as a waiter and the family of three is temporarily living with her mother.

“We’re paying my mom $200 a month for rent, and after diapers and formula and gas for work, we barely have enough money to spend,” said Bechtol, a high school graduate who wants to go to college. “If it weren’t for food stamps and other government money for families who need help, we wouldn’t have been able to survive.”

4 Responses to “Cost and Quality Differences in International Health Care”

  1. Rod says:

    Zenobia, 18, had unprotected sex at the age of 16 or 17, before graduating from high school, where she managed to learn absolutely nothing in twelve years of government school. But she knows all about food stamps, as does her boyfriend, whose complete lack of responsibility fits well into his unemployability as an electrician. Yeah, I bet he is not really an electrician, a trade that he could use in employing himself instead of working for someone else. Maybe he is not an electrician — perhaps a helper. I bet he has at least four tattoos and twelve piercings, too. Thank goodness those government benefits are available for children who reproduce at an early age. This couple can vote, too. If they resided in Philadelphia, they could even vote a couple of times in the city and then a couple of times in Chester. Sha na na na get a job.

  2. sherlock says:

    You mean to tell me that judging US healthcare solely on the average life expectancy isn’t such a great idea? What is this madness?

  3. RIT_Rich says:

    The WHO rankings are pretty silly, there is no doubt. But it is easy, simple, and within the reasoning capacity of people like Zenobia Bechtol.

    So let me get this straight; an 18 year old with no work skills, with a baby…is complaining that after paying for rent, enough food to be obese and feed 3 people, and a car…she doesn’t have enough money to “spend”?

    PS: If you want a good laugh, google her name and see what a “poverty stricken” woman looks like in America.

  4. Brent says:

    …Yes, that is proof- it might be bad to say, but we gotta make being poor suck again…

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