Quote:Piles of studies have called attention to the fact that in the country ranking number one in healthcare spending per capita, people are living shorter lives, feeling more depressed, and are more likely to skip treatment due to cost than in many developed nations. In a performance ranking of 11 high-income countries compiled by the Commonwealth Fund in 2021, the American healthcare system came in dead last, with the worst outcomes of any of the nations studied. “The only wealth is life,” wrote the nineteenth-century critic John Ruskin. Recent research indicates that America may be rich in dollars, but getting poorer in ways that matter most.

In a stunning new report, “Missing Americans: Early Death in the United States, 1933-2021,” Boston University professor of global health and epidemiology Jacob Bor and colleagues pored over data from the CDC and a global mortality database. During the period investigated, they compared U.S. mortality rates with those of Canada, Japan, and 16 Western European countries. How many American lives would have been saved each year, asked the researchers, if U.S. mortality rates had matched those of other wealthy nations? 

A staggering number, is the answer..

Quote:US life expectancy has fallen to the lowest level seen since 1996, continuing a steep decline largely driven by the Covid-19 pandemic. Government data showed life expectancy at birth now stands at 76.1 compared to 79 in 2019. That is the steepest two-year decline in a century. Covid-19 was the main contributing factor, according to US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data. Life expectancy of Native Americans and Alaska Natives fell by two years. According to the provisional data, life expectancy fell by 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021.

The statistics show that Covid-19 accounted for 50% of the decline between 2020 and 2021. Between 2019 and 2020, the pandemic contributed to 74% of the decline. Unintentional injuries - a term which also includes drug overdoses - reached record highs in 2021 and contributed to 15.9% of the decline. Deaths from heart disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and suicides were also significant contributors. The fall in US life expectancy was particularly pronounced among Native Americans and Alaska Natives. Since 2019, life expectancy among this demographic has dropped by 6.6 years, more than twice that of the wider US population.

Life expectancy in the US is among the lowest of developed nations around the world. In the UK, for example, life expectancy stood at around 79 for men and 82.9 for women in 2020 after it fell for the first time in 40 years. According to the latest available statistics from the World Bank, Hong Kong and Japan have the world's highest life expectancies at around 85 followed by Singapore at 84. Life expectancy in countries including Switzerland, Australia, Norway hovers at around 83.

Quote:The United States may regard itself as a “leader of the free world,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list. In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to 41st worldwide, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.

The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to The Economist’s democracy index.
As a political historian who studies U.S. institutional development, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections..