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And you know, it's not bad just overseas. Life expectancy actually drops for women...
has dropped for women in nearly 25% of U.S. counties. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 37th
in the world, and in many cases, we're actually moving backwards. And women in particular
are the victims of that backward progress, or, rather, backward regression. Or just regression,
I think. I think we don't have to say backward.
Louis: Right, just say regression, yeah.
David: Researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
published a county-by-county analysis of life expectancy. Bear with me here, Louis. From
'87 to '97, 1987 to 1997, 227 counties experienced a female life expectancy decrease. In the
10 years that followed, 1997 to 2007, the number of counties where women's life expectancy
dropped exploded to 737.
And when we compare these numbers with the rest of the world, it's even more appaling.
Of the nation's about 3100 counties, almost two-thirds fell further behind life expectancies
for women in the 10 longest-living countries. And this is despite, as we know, Louis, the
highest per-capita health spending in the world. In the world.
So in other words, no matter what you hear about the U.S. having the greatest health
care system in the world, for huge chunks of the population, the system is simply not
working. And we're seeing the evidence literally everywhere, Louis, if we look at spending,
if we look at results, if we look at access to care, if we look at the fact that the for-profit
health treatment industry has completely taken control of the entire business, and that's
sadly what it is, the business of health of Americans and American residents, is there
any area we can point to, Louis, that suggests the for-profit system is working well? I can't
think of any.
Louis: Well, no, I guess not, other than the fact that it's better than no health care
David: For those who have it.
Louis: Right.
David: For those who have it and have access to it.
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