"New studies show the U.S. ranks last in preventable deaths, and a surprising majority are women."

According to the US Census bureau, a surprising majority of Americans are women.

Maybe whoever writes these headlines should have a basic understanding of how statistics work.

I think you're on to something. I've never heard of a man dying in childbirth! Why are only women dying of this? Must be a government conspiracy against womyn.

...disproportionately affects women, and they're less likely to be covered. Of course, people who aren't covered do not seek preventative care. This is nothing new, and if we had a decent health care system it would cease to be a gender issue. It is a symptom of inequality, not a source of it.

Also, the fact that women's care costs more at the hospital, on average, is totally irrelevant, so everyone who is frothing over this might as well stop. It's not the issue here. The issue is that they're more often dying as the result of preventable health problems. Broadsheet does enough faulty reasoning, so go pick on that and leave this one alone.

Well, if money isn't the issue, what amount the time the average woman spends in the hospital, subjecting herself to the healthcare system's mercy? My sister has been in the hospital SIX TIMES more than her husband. (She's also had six kids! Coincidence?)

Faulty reasoning is right.

People that set one group on another, people that dehumanize one group in favor of another, people that use words like paranoia and attribute malevolency to what is more likely described as a) oversight, or bad incentives leading to bad outcomes, or new information, ... Those people are disgusting.

Well Ms. Lloyd, you are a disgusting malevolent force. It is you Ms. Lloyd that keeps people fleeing from the title feminism.

It is you Ms. Lloyd that Camille Paglia was discussing last night, your obvious hatred of men that fits well into the feminazi paradigm. Those are feminist and Salon Author's Camille Paglia's words, not mine.

When you next go into a hospital, I assume you will demand:

a) only female doctors

b) only female nurses

c) only female technicians

d) only medications developed by women

e) only technologies developed by women

Should you let a man or a technology developed by a man to touch your precious magical vagina enabled body, you will show yourself to be the dipshit hypocrite you are.

This is another in your series of how can I be a disgusting foul beast all in the name of women.

Have a shitty day.

Again, besides the point. What are you even talking about? Your personal anecdotes are just pointless here.

Fewer women are covered, and thus there is less preventative care. Period. I actually don't think it's a gender issue, in and of itself, and perhaps we agree on this, but what is your point?

I hope you get exactly what you want in a health care system. I doubt you will achieve that with the tactics you choose.

I can't begin to enumerate the amount of disgust I feel for you.

"The group that consumes the most health care, in total dollars, is women of childbearing age."

Care to back that up?

Most healthy women of childbearing age require an annual physical that includes a pelvic exam, unless they are pregnant (which, I grant you, is expensive, but since women who have children at all average 2.5 kids, it's hardly a chronic condition). Women are more likely than men to seek medical attention for illness, but office visits for colds and infections are small dollars. I don't think women are more or less likely than men to require hospitalization for injury or illness.

Women at the upper end of childbearing age start requiring more care: mamograms, bone density scans, etc. But, men of the same age require colonoscopies earlier than women.

Older people of both genders (over 45-50, which I know isn't "elderly," but they qualify for AARP), have on average more medications than those under 40. Additionally, older people are more likely to get sick, to stay sick longer, to have complex injuries (broken hip as opposed to broken toe), more complications from injuries, illnesses or surgeries. Elderly people of both genders are more likely to require treatment for chronic conditions from diabetes to cancers to emphysemia or opcd. And then there is Alzheimers and other forms of dementia that require round-the-clock care, PT, OT, medications and other expensive treatments. Add to that the elderly, even the sick elderly, live longer with each medical advance, and these expenses start to grow exponentially.

I just don't buy your statement. Or were you being ironic?

has been the every man for himself Republican free-market policy for over a generation now. It has reaped a for-profit unhindered health INSURANCE industry which rewards investors at the direct expense of policyholders - those "fortunate" enough to be able to afford them - and all for the privilege of being able to stand in the waiting line for some "allowed" healthcare services and providers. Millions upon millions of people aren't even in the waiting line due to no insurance, under-insurance, financial destitution wrought by a single major healthcare event or no access to the appropriate health care service or provider.

The healthcare industry is a non-system system of the highest technology, the self denial of care, of abject misery and f breath-taking life saving - nee heroic- measures.

But the failure is in the outcomes: ver one third of the citizenry is unable to access affordable and appropriate health CARE. That translates into preventable suffering and preventable deaths.

Until we face up that when we stand in the healthcare line, we do so at the expense f others who can't get into the line, we won't ever move forward.

"I can't begin to enumerate the amount of disgust I feel for you."

If you feel this after reading a column, written by someone you do not know and have not met, I cannot imagine what you are like to live with.

Ugh.