Point is, Australia pays less and gets more. while being -culturally- a “western” country (unlike Japan). Somewhat similar in many ways to Germany and the US.

Being a rich country seems not to be the only reason for high life expectancy. See comparatively low scores of Germany and the US. And to me it is puzzling how Australia, of all countries, ended so far at the top.

Public healthcare is available in Germany too… and on a small scale, basically in the US now too… Still, both suck hard and Australia excels. Tied insurance to a job is utmost stupid and unfair. Point well taken! Good job Australia! But this is the same in Germany.

@dgriffith@aussie.zone did a great job explaining some aspects!

Thanks for the effort. Not everything tries to kill you Australians either in reality? Was just playing around with some cliches… to underscore that I know nothing about Australia. The term ‘fast food culture’ is awesome. And surely you are able to compare pears with apples.

‘Government Regulation’ alone seems not be too important here, as all compared countries have many regulations in place. Especially also the US with their FDA. Typically, for the good, regulations increase cost for something to achieve something. Here ‘Drug and medical device safety’. And that public healthcare is a requirement is agreed upon by all of us. But these are not all aspects.

And for some reason Japanese are even better, even if they spend lives working all day while eating raw fish… don’t tell me now that this is not the entire truth either! (Having a healthy fast food culture eating sushi may help them too!)

Any good example for a corporate medical parasite? I’d like to dig deeper. I mean, do you mean ‘Pharma-Industry’ or Health Care insurance here? Any specific case? In Germany public health insurance is not really ‘evil’ it is just a huge bulky inefficient mess… And US Pfizer is of course a big corporation making billions. But they also brought us a pretty good COVID vaccine, pretty fast (with the help of a small company in Germany). IMHO Billions well deserved - in this single case.

TY! It really wasn’t on my screen… Think I‘ll dive deeper into this. Thanks again for the effort!

NHS underfunding is notorious. Not sure how situation has developed but I have seen quite some hospitals in the UK until 2016… Cannot really imagine it developed to the better. All the worst compared to continental Europe. And the few ones I saw in the US where excellent too. Of course some are exceptional in the UK. Not sure how situation has changed since 2016 though.

Sure. But the graphic is very much cherry picked. There is plenty of space between the US and Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

What surprises me is the high rank of Australia!

• Infrastructure in Australia is unfavorable… like the US (thin emc network vs. helicopters in Germany that are super common, Germany is a dense country, everywhere hospitals… Australia a desert with some coast. Like US.)
• Australians are basically US americans of the south (think food: originally british, cannot be healthy, no good car manufacturers, afraid of foreigners…)
• Everything is trying to kill you in Australia!

What the heck are they doing?

But maybe the Germans can learn from the Australians something. Germany‘s System is such a inefficient mess… just the administrative effort to maintain dozens of public health care insurances… crazy!

Barely, but doctors here in Germany are always complaining about difficulties they have with insurances. Especially the dozens of different public insurances. System here is an unconsolidated mess. Apart from having optional private insurance.

Like my doctor working on treatment and not being buried with administrative tasks.

Turns out it seems the Australians have public health insurance for everyone - Medicare. And you have optional additional private insurance. Communism I guess. Surely wouldn’t workout for the US…

Well, now I’d like to learn what the differences between the US and the Australian Healthcare System are!

Why is Australia so damn high up?

Sure, it is just not as one dimensional as this cherry picked graphic implies. Education is also a likely contributor.

The optimization would be : cost low, life expectancy at max… however… it is not that easy… ‚Let’s Just copy the system of Japan‘ just would not work… or maybe it would!

However, best healthcare will not help you if have a unhealthy lifestyle which is known to be a common issue in the US especially. Not sure how it is about Australia though!

I am only saying, that it is not only about the cost of healthcare. Education plays a role as well.

OTOH there a lot less people smoking in the US e.g. compared to France. So… fewer people smoking, pay less for healthcare equals higher life expectancy? Certainly not. Sure many insurance companies drain their customers in the US. Please fix the system.

The graphic implies, that somehow cost of healthcare is not correlated with life expectancy. The reason for that is not only to be searched in the US crappy insurance system.

In Germany the adminstrative effort including documentation is at 50%.

I mean… there is a LOT broken with the healthcare system in the US that you all know. However, in the US -granted you have the dime- you can get the best care in the world. If you can pay for that. If you have been to a hospital in the UK and to one in the US… you will exactly know what I mean.

However, this specific graphic shows that there are likely other contributors for higher life-expectancy than only professional/paid healthcare. E.g. lifestyle aspects like dietary consideration (Italy, Japan…).

Does not mean, that there is no need to fix the System.

Starting the process… now!