Kerby Anderson

Here’s a phrase I sometimes use on radio: “It is difficult to solve a problem when politicians won’t even admit there is a problem.” This is true about our national debt, but it is also true about America’s health. We can’t solve America’s health problems if we won’t admit that Americans are unhealthy. The confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. may be changing our mindset. But we still need to understand the depth of the health care problem in America.

We have heard that “America is a first-world country facing third-world health issues.” When you hear that, it sounds too extreme. Is that true? You can read an article in the Annual Review of Public Health that attempts to answer: “Why do Americans have shorter life expectancy and worse health than people in other high-income countries?”

It is even worse for poor Americans. One research paper on “Life Expectancy in the United States” says this: “The poorest men in the US have life expectancies comparable to men in Sudan and Pakistan; the richest men in the US live longer than the average man in any country.”

A CDC research paper documents that: “Six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease, and 4 in 10 have two or more chronic diseases.” It is worth mentioning that chronic disease may account for as much as three-quarters of America’s health care spending.

Another study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the “Prevalence of Adult Obesity and Severe Obesity,” made this ominous prediction. The researchers estimated that by 2030 nearly half of US adults will be obese.

These statistics, and many others, illustrate the need to address the health of Americans. There are solutions to this problem, but the first step is to admit there is a problem and understand the depth of our health care problem.