Healthcare: Older Americans Sicker than Brits, but Live Longer

Older Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, according to new research. Even so, Americans live just as long, or longer, than their cousins across the pond.

And Americans can give credit to their much maligned health care system for keeping them alive, despite their higher rates of illnesses.

Americans are sicker by far than the English, the researchers report today (Nov. 4) in the journal Demography. The finding echoes a 2006 report from the same research group that found white Americans were much sicker than white English residents.

The new study found that 12 percent of the American sample had diabetes compared with 5.9 percent of the English. Cancer was 74 percent more common in the United States, with 9.6 percent of American respondents reporting a cancer diagnosis compared with 5.5 percent of English respondents. America also higher rates of lung disease, heart disease and stroke.

But despite all that extra illness, older Americans don't die earlier than their British counterparts. In the 55 to 64-year-old age group, death rates were equivalent. After age 65, Americans had a slightly greater probability of survival than the English.

The disconnect between disease and mortality is likely due to the tendency of the American health care system to aggressively diagnose and treat illness, Smith said. Americans undergo more screening for diseases such as cancer than Western Europeans and are more likely to get intensive treatment sooner.

"The route that we've chosen to go is a very expensive route," Smith said. "That's why we spend twice as much [on health care] relative to GDP [gross domestic product] as the English do. But we get a benefit from it."

"We have a system that has good outcomes at an unsustainable cost, and I'm not sure health care reform has changed that equation," he said.

One problem, Smith said, is that Americans' high rate of illness may fall outside the control of doctors and hospitals.

"Take, just for example, the fact that Americans have bigger bellies than the English," Smith said. "That wasn't done to us by our doctors ... It has a lot to do with what we eat and how much exercise we do."

For more, see Surprise: Older Americans Sicker than Brits, but Live Longer by Stephanie Pappas, November 4, 2010 at Live Science.