Andy Rooney Opinion

Andy Rooney gave his opinion for the need of health care reform on the 60-minute broadcast of October 25th. . He stated that the U.S. ranked 50th on a list of countries by life expectancy. According to the Central Intelligence Agency Factbook estimate of 2009, there are 195 countries on that list. The number one ranked country on that list is Macau (a country in China) with an average life expectancy of 84.36 years. Swaziland is the last ranked country on the list at 195 with an average life expectancy of 39.4 years.
The United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs-Population Division provides a list of countries ranked by population. Population with 546,200 or 0.008% of world population ranks Macau at 165 on that list. Population with 1,185,000 or 0.017% of world population ranks Swaziland at 154. The United State with a population of 307,792,000 or 4.53% of world population is ranked 3rd with a life expectancy rank of 50th with a life expectancy average of 78.11 years. China with a population of 1,333,740,000 or 19.63% of world population is ranked number 1, with a life expectancy rank at 105 with a life expectancy average of 73.47 years. India is ranked by population of 1,171,660,000 or 17.25% of world population is ranked at number 2, with a life expectancy rank of 145 with life expectancy average of 69.89 years.
The opinion of Mr. Rooney suggest that the United States needs health care reform to improve its ranking on life expectancy. The United States (3rd in world population), life expectancy is 4.64 years longer than China’s (the most populated country), and 8.22 years longer than India’s (2nd most populated country). The difference between Macau and the United States life expectancy (number 1 ranked and 50th ranked) is 6.25years.
The quality and availability of health care in the United States is the best in the world. The health care industry needs reform to manage cost, fraud and abuse, much of which the government can take responsibility for. Reform is needed to correct legislation that created an environment in the health care industry that allows these issue to exist. To advocate a government-run nationalized health care system by suggesting that we’ll live longer is wrong. It may suggest an agenda quite different than a better health care system for the American People
Mr. Rooney’s opinion was misleading and purposely dishonest.