Healthcare Matters

You know, I get tired of reading about how awful the US healthcare system is. The Seattle Times today ran a story that stated we wouldn’t even make it into the medal round were there any such thing as a Global Healthcare Olympics.

The author’s opening conclusion grabbed my attention: “Let’s measure the health of a country by its life expectancy. If a population lives longer it must be healthier.” Really? The story then goes on to make the same precarious correlative leap that most of these stories make; it indicts our health system. This particular piece went so far as to suggest that income inequality is yet another notorious culprit, pointing out a Harvard study that concluded: “Countries with bigger gaps between the rich and the poor tend to have poorer health. Our inequality gap is associated with a higher and increasing life-span gap.”

I can’t be sure, but I’ll bet the study isn’t saying that it’s the gap between rich and poor that is causing all of us to die sooner than, for example, the Japanese –the gold medal winners. I think it’s pointing out something we already could have guessed; that poorer people (on average throughout the world –not just in the US) don’t tend to live as long. Blaming that fact on a nation’s health system is not a argument I’m prepared to make.

One of our fast food icons bailed out of Japan a few years ago, only to return recently with a menu that may do more to widen the life expectancy gap between the US and Japan than anything else. No, Wendy’s didn’t introduce the Bacon Sundae to the Japanese –that culinary foul was reserved for the US market and would have had the opposite affect. Rather, Wendy’s introduced the Japanese to what the press is calling “a menu for the 1 percenters.”

In addition to the Foie Gras Rossini and the Truffle and Porcini Grilled Chicken Sandwich, there are three new meals ranging in cost from $16 to $20. There’s the Surf and Turf burger — that’s a hamburger topped with lobster, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. There’s the Lobster and Caviar burger: Lobster chunks and lobster salad topped with caviar. And, finally, the Ocean Premium Salad, which consists of lobster, caviar, avocado, an egg, and assorted vegetables.

And we anxiously wait each year for McDonald’s to announce the limited availability of the McRib? No wonder we’re dying off. Clearly, it’s the fault of our health system.

—Tom Finn