WASHINGTON—Hundreds of thousands of veterans face years long delays in their appeals of disability rulings because of a backlog of cases choking the Department of Veterans Affairs…
This backlog causes a number of problems, according to the department’s inspector general and veterans advocates, as well as VA statistics. Rushed rulings on initial claims can be riddled with errors. Veterans who appeal their cases typically wait between three and seven years for resolutions to their appeals, according to the Government Accountability Office. An inspector general report also found that one in 14 veterans dies while awaiting a decision on their disability claim appeal.
The appeals system remains “horribly flawed,” said Chief Judge Robert Davis, the top judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, the independent federal court that oversees and reviews rulings from the VA’s internal appeals board
Y’all don’t beat me up for not researching this post like a doctoral thesis, but I’ll bet a bunch of that spend is from lifestyle diseases already mentioned, and expensive, unnecessary end-of-life care.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, the per capita calorie consumption is 3800 per day in the US vs. 3530 for France and Canada. That is a difference of almost 100K in calories per year which would be the equivalent of more than 28 pounds in weight if the convention of using 3.5K equals one pound was accurate. If we add in the possibility that French and Canadian residents walk and ride bicycles more than Americans, it is not surprising that Americans are relatively unhealthy.
When I was posting about lifestyle issues and their impact on health on FWF, I provided evidence that French women, who consume less alcohol and have better overall diets, are generally healthier than French men.
When evaluating the quality and cost of medical care, I believe one should look at the outcomes from treatment instead of simply the per capita cost. Although the US has very high treatment costs, in many cases once someone begins treatment in the US the results are generally quite good. There is a reason that very wealthy people frequently travel to the US for complex care. In contrast, for the less financially endowed, traveling to other countries for some types of care can result in large savings for comparable care.
The numbers should be useful for comparing relative consumption levels but are not the best way to count individual calorie consumption. I was using the UN numbers listed on Wikipedia.
From the WHO: “Global and regional per capita food consumption (kcal per capita per day),” the 2015 estimate for industrialized countries is 3440.
You tried to claim the French were more unhealthy than us because of their diet. I pointed out that your anecdotal claim (which you didn’t even bother to cite a source for) was a poorly drawn conclusion because the diet items you mentioned aren’t as bad for you as we once thought. Then I tried to make a joke because surely you wouldn’t continue down that line of thinking. But no, you responded by calling the claims that we are more unhealthy than the rest of the developed world “unsubstantiated.” In an attempt to substantiate them and debunk you, I post a source that explains that we are the fattest country in the OECD out of 35 and France is 26th.
How is that meaningless and irrelevant to the comparative health argument and how does it not assist in proving your claim about the French was incorrect?
From your link:
“Food consumption expressed in kilocalories (kcal) per capita per day is a key variable used for measuring and evaluating the evolution of the global and regional food situation. A more appropriate term for this variable would be “national average apparent food consumption” since the data come from national Food Balance Sheets rather than from food consumption surveys.”
I take that to mean that they are looking at all the food that is ‘supplied’ nationally. E.g. domestic production plus imports less exports. A lot of that gets wasted (expired food thrown out by grocery stores, food waste at home,…) and not consumed.
“Overall, the authors found the percent of U.S. national medical expenditures devoted to treating obesity-related illness in adults rose from 6.13 percent in 2001 to 7.91 percent in 2015, an increase of 29 percent.”
While they certainly come with costs, the fatties are not the reason for the USA’s outsized health care spending. And it’s not like other countries fare that much better in the obesity statistics, the US is just ahead.
Good point. Although I would have preferred a different data set, the UN and WHO numbers seemed more reliable than some of the small sample surveys. If someone finds better sources, it would add to the discussion.
I was trying to compare the relative calorie consumption rates of the US, Canada and France and wasn’t focusing on the gross numbers. If the US wastes more food than Canada and France the relationship will vary.
