'Burdened by diseases': Study details what's wrong with American healthcare

12 December 2024

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The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City and subsequent arrest of suspect Luigi Mangione in Altoona, Pennsylvania has sparked intense debates about the widely criticized practices of health insurance companies in the United States.

Some social media users have expressed their frustrations by praising the shooter as a folk hero and offered to crowdfund his defense. But many other critics of United Healthcare have stressed that while vigilante justice and premeditated murder are absolutely wrong, practices that cause needless suffering and leave Americans bankrupt desperately need to change.

MSNBC's Joy Reid and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), for example, have vehemently condemned Thompson's murder but attacked the practices of United and other health insurance companies as a cruel abomination.

On Wednesday, December 11, the American Medical Association (AMA) released a report showing that U.S. residents spend a lot more time suffering from diseases than residents of other countries.

The Guardian's Maya Young, reporting on the AMA's findings, notes that "Americans live with diseases for an average of 12.4 years" — a higher number than other countries.

"Mental and substance-use disorders, as well as musculoskeletal diseases, are main contributors to the years lived with disability in the U.S., per the study," Young explains. "Women in the US exhibited a 2.6-year higher so-called healthspan-lifespan gap — representing the number of years spent sick — than men, increasing from 12.2 to 13.7 years or 32 percent beyond the global mean for women.

The Guardian reporter adds, "The latest overall healthspan-lifespan gap in the U.S. marks an increase from 10.9 years in 2000 to 12.4 years in 2024, resulting in a 29 percent higher gap than the global mean."

Young notes that "globally," according to the AMA's findings, the "healthspan-lifespan gap has widened over the last 20 years, extending to 9.6 years from 8.5 years in 2000 — a 13 percent increase.

"Following the U.S. in the largest healthspan-lifespan gaps were Australia at 12.1 years, New Zealand at 11.8 years, the UK and Northern Ireland at 11.3 years and Norway at 11.2 years," Young reports. "By contrast, the smallest healthspan-lifespan gaps were seen in Lesotho at 6.5 years, Central African Republic at 6.7 years, Somalia and Kiribati at 6.8 years and Micronesia at 7 years."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

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