on May 7th, 2006Americans Less Healthy Than British
After reading the Journal of the American Medical Association article below, you have to wonder about the structure of the health care system in America. This may be the land of the free, but when it comes to health care, it’s the land of the gouge.
Corporations like McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts don’t give a damn if they’re selling you food products that research has proven is unhealthy. The health care system overcharges those with insurance to cover those who don’t have insurance. It’s all a mess, but far too much money is being made and spent on lobbyists to change any of it.
Stop eating crap, stop eating at junk food restaurants, stop buying food that’s produced with chemicals to speed up its time to market. The only person who can make a difference is yourself.
White middle-aged Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, research suggests. Americans aged 55 to 64 are up to twice as likely to suffer from diabetes, lung cancer and high blood pressure as English people of the same age. The healthiest Americans had similar disease rates to the least healthy English, the Journal of the American Medical Association study found.
Americans ‘more ill than English’
BBC News, May 2, 2006
Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and in England
James Banks, PhD; Michael Marmot, MD; Zoe Oldfield, MSc; James P. Smith, PhD
JAMA. 2006;295:2037-2045.
Context: The United States spends considerably more money on health care than the United Kingdom, but whether that translates to better health outcomes is unknown.
Objective: To assess the relative heath status of older individuals in England and the United States, especially how their health status varies by important indicators of socioeconomic position.
Conclusion: Based on self-reported illnesses and biological markers of disease, US residents are much less healthy than their English counterparts and these differences exist at all points of the SES distribution.