People uninterested in change and progress tend to cling to the
jingoistic fantasy that America is an exceptional country. Often this
implies that the U.S. is somehow superior to other nations. Some, like
the neocons, have taken the idea of exceptionalism to mean that America
should be above the law and that other countries should be remade in our
image. Others, like conservative evangelicals, believe that America’s
supposed exceptionalism is God’s will.
In recent decades, America
has indeed pulled ahead of the global pack in a number of areas. But
they aren’t necessarily things to go waving the flag over or thanking
Jehovah.
In the U.S., having a baby is going to cost you, big-time, before you even get that bundle of joy home. The
that
on average, a hospital delivery costs $9,775 — and make that $15,041 if
you’re having a Cesarean. No other first-world country on earth expects
new parents to shell out that kind of money just for the privilege of
procreating.
You might think insurance would help. You’d be wrong.
A staggering 62 percent of private plans come with zilch in the way of
maternity coverage. Mothers-to-be are dragged through what the
calls
“an extended shopping trip though the American healthcare bazaar” where
they try to figure out the cost of things like ultrasounds and blood
tests. Pricing is often opaque and widely variable, and it’s common for
mothers to receive treatments they don’t necessarily need. Even when
insurance does cover maternity care, between the deductibles and
co-insurance fees, women can expect to shell out thousands in
out-of-pocket expenses: an average of $3,400.
Do American mothers
get some kind of unusual care for all that dough? Nope. They receive the
same services moms receive in other first-world countries; they just
pay for them individually and at higher rates.
2. Obesity. The U.S. has been ranked as the
most obese country in the world, though a recent report by the U.N. says that Mexico is
pulling ahead of
us. Not surprisingly, obesity is considered a national health crisis
and contributes to an estimated 100,000 to 400,000 deaths in the U.S.
per year. In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported that 35.7 percent of American adults are obese, and 17 percent
of American children. More than
two-thirds of American adults are either overweight or obese.
Americans
are ballooning for a number of reasons, including our fondness for
fried food, sugary drinks, cheap, pre-packaged foods, processed meats,
our sedentary lifestyle, particularly television-watching, too little
sleep, and a lack of exercise. Obesity is associated with diabetes,
heart disease, complications in pregnancy, strokes, liver disease —the
list goes on and on. The obesity epidemic is also responsible for
increased healthcare use and expenditures. Kentucky is the most obese
state, and Colorado is the least obese.
Researchers
predict that the cost of obesity in the U.S. is likely to reach $344 billion by 2018.
3. Anxiety disorders.Americans
are freaking out. Researchers have looked at the prevalence of various
types of mental illness around the globe and found that the U.S. is the
world champion in anxiety.
According to the 2009 results of the World Health Organization’s World
Mental Health Survey, 19 percent of Americans were found to experience a
clinical anxiety disorder over a given 12-month period. The National
Institutes of Health puts the number at
18 percent of adults, which means that at least 40 million Americans are suffering.
Researchers
have found that anxiety disorders, which include several varieties such
as generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and
post-traumatic stress disorder
,take a tremendous toll
on the population. Often, anxiety disorders are associated with other
ailments such as chronic pain and they tend to limit the sufferer’s
participation in daily activities. The disorders are more prevalent in
women, and only a third of sufferers receive treatment specifically
addressed at anxiety.
The Anxiety and Depression Association of America
finds that
people suffering from anxiety disorders are up to five times more
likely to go to the doctor in general and six times more likely to be
hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than others.
4. Small arms ownership.The Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva
ranks the
U.S. number one in both the total number of civilian firearms and in
per capita ownership of small firearms, beating out recent war zones
like Yemen, Serbia and Iraq.
In fact, we may even have more guns in the U.S. than we have people: The
rate of private gun ownership in
the U.S. was tabulated at 101.05 firearms per 100 individuals in one
study. According to a recent report on CNN, Americans own as many as
one-third of the guns in the entire world. Research also shows that
while the number of households with guns has declined, current gun
owners are stockpiling more guns. Part of this concentration seems to
stem from the fact that guns are primarily marketed to people who
already own guns.
A related statistic: In the U.S., the gun-related murder rate is the
second highest in the developed world. Only Mexico, where the ongoing drug war expands the number, has us beat.
5. Most people behind bars.Incarceration
rates in the U.S. blow right past the likes of Russia, Cuba, Iran or
China. According to the International Center for Prison Studies, the
U.S. locks up
716 out of every 100,000 people. Norway, in contrast, only puts 71 out of 100,000 in the clink. Japan jails 54 and Iceland locks up only 47 out of 100,000.
The
latest stats show
that the total prison population of the U.S., including pre-trial
detainees and remand prisoners, is 2,239,751. These people are behind
bars at 4,575 different facilities. The estimated capacity of our
prisons, by the way, is only 2,134,000. In 2010, there were an
estimated 70,792 juveniles locked away.
Racism
is rife in the prison system, with blacks and Hispanics
disproportionately represented. Inhumane conditions abound, from poor
care for those suffering from serious diseases like
HIV/AIDS to
the torture of solitary confinement to rape to abuse of the mentally
ill. Debtor’s prisons are thought to be a relic of the 19th century,
but starting in 2011, in the U.S. you can find yourself
imprisoned for debt in
several states, including Florida. High rates of imprisonment seem to
derive from a number of factors, including long sentences, the
incarceration of non-violent offenders (20 percent of the prison
population is made up of drug offenders) and the privatization trend, in
which private corporations rely on “growth” models to increase their
profits.
6. Energy use per person.The U.S. is the global leader in the amount of
energy use per person. We get top billing in
electricity consumption, we’re miles ahead of everybody in
oil consumption, and when it comes to
coal consumption, we’re number two, right behind China.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration
reports that
Americans account for nearly 19 percent of Planet Earth’s total primary
energy consumption, which comes from petroleum, natural gas, coal,
nuclear, and renewable energy. About
one-quarter of primary energy
consumed in the U.S. in 2011 was supplied came from natural gas, made cheap through fracking.
Factors
contributing to high use include the cost of heating and cooling
increasingly large homes, electricity requirements for home electronics,
the high amount of energy required to produce consumer goods in the
industrial sector, and transportation usage.
U.S. energy consumption almost
tripled from
1950 to 2007, driven by population growth and increased standards of
living, and then dipped in 2009 due to the Great Recession. The U.S. is
predicted to experience a slight decline in energy use in the coming
years, but world energy demand is on pace to double by 2050.
7. Health expenditures.
The U.S. devotes more of its economy to health than any other country,
17.6 percent of GDP in 2010, and the trend is slanted upward. We spend
more in every category of healthcare, especially in administration
costs, due to the existence of thousands of different insurance
companies.
Yet the Commonwealth Fund
ranked the
U.S. dead last in healthcare quality among similar countries, while
noting that U.S. care is the most expensive. A coronary bypass in the
U.S., for example, costs 50 percent more than it would cost you in
Canada, Australia and France, and twice as much as you’d pay in Germany.
Despite
all the money sloshing around, the U.S. has fewer physicians per person
than most other OECD countries, fewer hospital beds, and a lower life
expectancy at birth, according to a
recent PBS report.
The same report stated that the U.S. spent $8,233 on health per person
in 2010. The next highest spenders, Norway, the Netherlands and
Switzerland spent at least $3,000 less per person.
8. Cocaine use.When it comes to cocaine use, we’ve got
a tie with Spain.
In both countries, according to the 2008 World Drug Report released by
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, three percent of adults and teens say
they’ve given it a try.
Between 2006 and 2010, cocaine use is reported to have
declined significantly in the U.S.,
but demand has by no means disappeared: about 2 million Americans are
regular users (crack users account for about 700,000 of these). Colombia
was once the
major supplier of cocaine to Americans,
but it has now fallen behind Bolivia and Peru, according to the Office
of National Drug Control Policy. Cocaine is the second most popular drug
behind pot, but unlike marijuana, it is associated with high rates of
death, particularly due to cardiac arrest.
Interesting factoid:
Cocaine has a nasty link to industrial capitalism. It first became
popular with laborers as a way of increasing productivity, and employers
often supplied the drug.
