[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Harmon

The paper you cite is not about health care and longevity. It is about economic sustainability and profitability in developing countries.

I never said it would be about anything else. It just shows a linkage between health care and other factors and longevity. The point is, the paper shows what happpens in developing countries and reflects what happened in the past in the so called "industrial countries".

Originally Posted by Harmon

It's DRMed (evil! evil!) so I can't copy & paste portions of it for the "fair use" of mocking its virtually impenetrable jargon.

Unfortunately i can't offer you an DRMfree version. I didn't recognize this "obstacle".

Originally Posted by Harmon

There's no question that in particular instances, specific health care has something to do with whether specific people survive & get some longevity (although I like your coinage, "longlivety." My mother died of cancer at 45. These days, she would probably have survived it, and lived to 68, like her mother (overweight, died of a heart attack) or 75 (father, suicide from depression.) These days, he probably would have been treated for it.

My warmest condolences. (My grandfather died last year of cancer too)
Actually "longlivety" wasn't a coinage, just a typo. But maybe i will retain it.

Originally Posted by Harmon

But overall, once you get past infant mortality, longevity is not what health care is about, till the last six months of life - which has very little impact on computing longevity. No matter how much money you spend, you can't substitute health care for good genes.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Harmon

And most people don't die young, or even in middle age, from dread disease. It's accidents that do them in. Believe me - when you hit my age, you pay attention to the obituaries.

Without good health care much more people would die because of (treatable) diseases. This is what happened in past, life spans were much shorter just some hundreds years ago because of a lack of health care (and other factors).

Originally Posted by Harmon

I said it before - health care is implicated in longevity at the margins. In Europe, Canada, America, Austrialia, & New Zealand, health care is about quality of life, not length of life.

Partially agreed. I agree that health care doesn't primarily targets length of life but i disagree that it's only implicated at the margins. We don't need to agree on this point but please don't call me "ignorant" just because i don't share your opinion.