Too Many Deaths

Recently I read an interesting study that examined the mortality rates in the United States between 1980 through 2023, including the time before, during, and after the COVID epidemic. Researchers took it one step further: they obtained mortality data from other high-income countries to compare the mortality rates between the countries while accounting for the differences in population size. The countries included Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

This comparison illustrated that beginning about 1985, the U.S. had more deaths per 100 people than the average of all the other countries. In 2005, the difference increased even more to the point that the U.S. had more deaths per 100 people than every other country in the study. Over the course of the years of observation, that came to an extra 14.5 million Americans who died.

While this was an observational study, it leaves us with the question: why? We certainly spend more on healthcare per capita than any other high-income country, coming in at just over $12,000 per person, while the average of other high-income countries comes in at half that—and yet somehow they’re healthier. The researchers cited drug overdose, shooting deaths, and cardiometabolic disease as the most likely contributing factors. I’ll give you my thoughts on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?