Some of them did manage to release statements about how much they support the NHS before dying. I'd be more impressed if they lived though.
The United Nations World Population Prospects suggests current life expectancy in Australia in 2022 to be 83.79.
In fact, Australia enjoys one of the highest life expectancies in the world, ranking 8th out of 60 developed countries. That’s higher than the UK (81.65) and the US (79.05).
[ raw data source ] https://population.un.org/wpp/
So it appears that both Australia and the UK with National Health services (named differently in AU) have greater life expectancies than the US.
Perhaps it's the authors you read?
Bertrand Russell was 97 when he died.
US's lifespan is not caused by lack of access to healthcare though, that is fentanyl.
True, however Australia has a tiered health care system with a very low gap to ensure that practically the entire population has access to healthcare that they can afford in addition to national bulk pharmacy deals to cap generics for the bulk of ailments that require prescription.
For all it's warts the Australian system delivers a kind of healthcare that the US system does not .. widely available affordable treatment for the bulk of medical issues.
US (general mean both sexes) life expectancy sharply dropped as COVID spread, the most that fentanyl can be accused of is the flattening of the general slow increase between 2012 and 2018 .. even that ended and was on the increase until the USofA foot gunned its handling of COVID.
[ Historic USofA ] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/EX/BothSe...
[ Historic Australia ] https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/EX/BothSe...
How do people with substance use disorders stop using substances? They use healthcare, unless they're in the US where they'll using some quasi-religious abstinence-only residential programme.
If you're talking about Douglas Adams, he died of a massive heart attack...in California, where he'd lived for years.
So, in summary, uh wot mate?
Though everyone in my family in Glasgow seems to live well into their 90s.
Same for "medication wasn't available": "my insurance doesn't cover the medication required".
The US literally has a video genre of "rationing of insulin to survive".
on average, system is good for bottom half but system is pathetic in terms of services after paying such high taxes.
The difficulty is for sudden situations like heart attacks. For these you need savings accounts and a baseline catastrophic plan.
You don't have unlimited fully equipped hospitals and operating rooms. You don't have unlimited heart surgeons. You don't have unlimited MRT scanners or labs doing blood tests.
In healthcare both the supply and the demand are inelastic. Market forces here work only for the most common and the most simple cases like nasal sprays and eye drops.
Furthermore a lot of innovation goes to increasing bandwidth of the existing doctors. See tele health.
I think you have a very limited view of what is possible.
What's a "competitive healthcare market" for diabetes? Or cancer? Or childbirth?
> Anyone who thinks the universal model standard in Canada and the UK is actually working has a hole in their head.
The UK has a population of 67 million. There are half a billion patient contacts in any given year. I've yet to hear stories like "I can't afford my insulin" or "we had a child, the bill was 200k and we were also charged for holding the baby"