This is from an article in the New York Times:
Result we like: “For people over 55, an alcoholic drink a day reduces the risk of death by 28 percent, compared with not drinking. But there was no advantage in drinking one drink or less a week.”
Result we don’t like: “Those who had more than three drinks a day increased their risk by 11 percent.”
Among developed countries, Hong Kong is so far out in front there isn’t even a close second. Or at least it would be if (a) it were still an independent country and (b) I used the measuring rods commonly used by critics of the US system, including the Commonwealth Fund, the World Health Organization, SiCKO and the Mercer/BRT study described below.
Why does Hong Kong rate so high? Because:
Also, all medical students are trained to use electronic medical records and, at least in the public hospitals, they actually use them.
So why aren’t we hearing about Hong Kong from Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and all the other critics of American health care? Maybe because Hong Kong has (a) one of the smallest public sectors (government spends only 55% of the total), (b) very little health insurance (only 12% of spending) and (c) the highest amount of out-of-pocket spending among developed countries (one out of every three dollars). Continue reading Hong Kong’s Health Care System Is Number One
In "Pharmaceutical Innovation and the Longevity of Australians: A First Look," co-authors Frank Lichtenberg and Gautier Duflos find that the benefits of new pharmaceuticals significantly exceed their costs. Using 1995-2003 data on actual prescriptions from the set of about 700 drugs available under the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), they estimate that newer drugs increase life expectancy by 1.23 years. The cost per life-year gained from using newer drugs is $10,585. Continue reading Benefits of New Pharmaceuticals Exceed their Costs
After you answer the questions — which takes just a few minutes — it spits out your calendar age, your biological age and your life expectancy; and a fourth category called "your Blue Zone years," (the difference between your calendar age and your biological age) which is basically years accrued or taken off because of your lifestyle habits and overall health. [link]
This is from a RAND study:
We found policies that [cut drug company revenues by 20 percent] could result in modest savings for consumers, in the best cases on the order of $5,000 to $10,000 per person over a lifetime.
In many other cases, those policies resulted in very substantial losses to consumers in the form of reduced life expectancy and those would be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
We found longevity declines on the order of about a half of year for people at the age of 55 when you look out to people who are alive in 2050 and 2060.
This is from a presentation by Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Peter Orszag: