As anyone who follows the healthcare debate knows, if you account for the higher rate of homicide and auto fatalities, the U.S. life expectancy suddenly looks an awful lot like European life expectancy rates (in fact, it’s a little bit better than most European nations’).
Sen. Ensign brought this point up during the Finance Committee hearings and is now being attacked for it by the left-wing blogosphere. For example, there’s this bit from ThinkProgress:
Basically, Ensign is proud of U.S. “cultural factors” that, as he admits, kill thousands of Americans each year. Instead of trying to improve the health care system to better address injuries from cars and guns, Ensign would like to just wipe them off the books and ignore them because they’re so unique to America.
Now, this is just speculation on my part, but I suspect the better portion of deaths from gunshot wounds and auto accidents result in fatalities before an individual would have any chance of getting to a hospital so they could receive their universal healthcare.
Anyone know if I’m right on that one?
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After a little research, here’s what I found:
Approximately two-thirds of cranial gunshot victims die before reaching a hospital (source: http://is.gd/3UINI). In Seattle, if a gunshot victim makes it to the hospital, the patient has a 91% chance of survival (source: http://is.gd/3UIWW). This shows that Sen. Ensign made a valid point, and arguments that we need to drastically improve the success rate are invalid.
As for car accidents, in 1999, 48% of car accident fatalities occurred before reaching a hospital (source: http://is.gd/3UJrF). In 2004, 50% of urban road fatalities and 65% of rural road fatalities occurred before reaching a hospital (source: http://is.gd/3UJBH)