It's Probably The NHS Causing Our Ill-Health
Shoulda privatised it, obviously
Those who keep their nose to the news grindstone will remember this:
The number of years people in the UK spend in good health is falling, according to a new report.
Over the past decade healthy life expectancy (HLE) has dropped by around two years to just under 61 for both men and women.
The UK is one of only five of the richest 21 countries to see HLE decline and its fall was the second steepest.
The Health Foundation, which produced the analysis, said there was a significant economic cost to this trend and the findings should act as a watershed moment.
It said poverty, poor housing and lifestyle factors such as obesity were to blame along with the impact of the Covid pandemic.
Hmm. Tho’ there’s a logic to thinking that poor health in a population could be due to the health care system of that same population.
You know, maybe?
Anyway, the usual suspects all started shouting that it was austerity, neoliberalism and bring on more socialism, etc.
At which point, from across The Pond:
Rising elderly life expectancy is a well-known source of fiscal pressure on Social Security and Medicare – but how have declining mortality and morbidity affected the two programs’ relative finances? Using nearly three decades of Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey data (1992-2019), we estimate that these demographic changes raised expected lifetime Social Security spending by over twice as much as expected lifetime Medicare spending: 14% compared to 6%. The slower growth of elderly lifetime health care spending than annuity spending reflects two features of how longevity has increased: the additional 2.4 years of remaining life expectancy were entirely healthy – free of physical or cognitive limitations – while the expected amount of time spent with severe health limitations fell by about 30%, reducing expected lifetime nursing-home and home-health use.
The Americans are gaining healthy life years while we are losing them.
Hmm, that is interesting, no? Thus the UK requires more red in tooth and claw capitalism, more neoliberalism, obviously. Sell the NHS for scrap and go private!
And, well, but that’s not quite how American health care works, not for those over 65. That’s Medicare. Which is paid for by the government. But not supplied by the government. Which is a reasonable guide to what the problem is with the NHS. Tax paid health care is fine. It’s government supplied that is not.
At which point we gain our prescription - sell the NHS for scrap and have more neoliberalism. We’ll gain longer and healthier retirements by doing so.
The numbers are just fictitious. They are based mainly on obesity and mental health being actual morbidities. It is those that drive the UK's fall where the comparators have not declined. And logically the NHS cannot be responsible: it doesn't create morbidity (well...) and it doesn't really cure morbidities either, particularly past 60. Because of significantly increased screening, it does now find a lot more morbidities however. And reducing the levels of things like cholesterol that are classified as normal increases morbidity even though those people feel perfectly fine. Essentially we are just overdiagnosing, as longevity proves.
Importing many thousands of people with obscure diseases, genetic conditions and customs (cousin marriage) while exporting healthy youngsters in search of better opportunities and a less crushing tax burden can’t be helping.