Does this mean I can stop stuffing my face with olives now

Not being shot also helps

Also not being run over by cars, and having the ability to walk/bike/take transit to get to places.

Universal healthcare might help but it is also--

Auto accidents driven by car culture.
Higher drug and alcohol abuse rates.
Higher suicide rates driven by access to firearms.
A culture of unhealthy eating that leads to obesity, heart disease, and increased risk of cancer.

Don't forget the wage slave mentality: forced long hours, extreme stress in a fast pace work environment, the non-existent vacation days, and at-will employment
Point 3 is just wrong.
Japanese don't have easy access to guns and yet Japan has one of the highest suicide rates.
Same with Uruguay, highest suicide rate in America without having easy access to guns.
- The suicide rate obviously has multiple contributing factors, but access to firearms is absolutely one of them. There's multiple studies on this that will come up in a quick web search. In general, access to anything that makes suicide more impulsive increases the suicide rate. I say this as a person who absolutely believes that access to firearms should be the default state for those that want it.
- Opportunity and desire both contribute to rate. Firearms increase opportunity so more of those with desire will try. Some cultures also give more people the desire so more attempts will be made using other methods. It is not either or.
- This is a myth. The suicide rate in Japan is lower than the US, and similar to European countries. South Africa, Russia, and Korea have bonkers suicide rates.
- Access to firearms increases the rate of suicide. He may have worded it poorly but the point stands. The fact that other countries have worse rates of suicide without firearms notwithstanding, because if they had access to firearms, it would be even higher.
Is alcohol abuse more prevalent in the US?
The US alcohol consumption avg. is 2.51 gallons, or 9.5 litres per person and year. In the EU the average is also 9.5 litres per person and year. For drug abuse i know the US have the specific opiod problem, but that also seems to be a result of a poor healthcare system, where taking painkillers until addiction is chosen over actually solving the underlying injuries for monetary reasons.
- For the alcohol question, I'm actually very interested in seeing a stat of solitary drinking vs social drinking, and how it affects these statistics.
  For instance I know parts of Europe still hold a very strong comraderie "pub culture." Alcohol is involved but so are strong social bonds.
  The U.S has lately been making lots of quips about "wine moms" driven to sneak cheap chardonnay from the top cabinet, as well as the cliché portrayal of "working man who is so chewed up and burned out he needs a whisky and TV to sleep."
  Not a fan of heavy drinking in general, but I hypothesize alcohol paired with isolation is much more likely to result in abuse and depression.
As pointed out, guns are a means to suicide, not the cause. While I do believe in gun control, until we have physician assisted suicide, guns are some of the most reliable ways for people to have a say in when their life ends.
Take away the guns(the this specific circumstance, not talking about other gun related issues) and the suicide rate will maybe go down, but the rate of unsuccessful, excruciating, and possibly disfiguring/disabling suicide attempts will absolutely go up.
- Absolutely. Sorry for the long post because I struggle to pare it all down but:
  The suicide rate AND the homicide rate is because we live in an inhuman society that, underneath all the transparent PR, is practically egging you on to "just do it already."
  It tells us that "unless you have money and power, which strip you of your humanity, you don't matter, and in fact, nothing else does either." We're then shocked when people act like psychopaths.
  Everything once held sacred is now deconstructed with the most cynical of irony, after it's been perverted and exploited for profit, of course. Traditions, communal rituals, the very concept of family, things that once held peoples together are now ridiculed and discarded.
  People see everything through the lens of a transaction, even romantic relationships, even marriages. We're encouraged to be slaves to our egos and "pursue" fleeting happiness at all costs.
  People are encouraged to see each other by their different labels, and tribe up against other labels, because that sells more plastic garbage.
  Social media empires pervade our waking lives and manipulate us into releasing a ridiculous amount of cortisol that would shock our ancestors.
  Our jobs are totalitarian dictatorships that we're forced to volunteer in so we can bother to exist within our borders of a country that is "so great and free."
  Everyone is very suspicious of everyone else. It's rude form to just go introduce yourself and talk to someone. It's harassment unless you're meeting other people through some commercialized app. If someone comes up and talks to you out of the blue, they probably have some kind of angle.
  Ultimately.... Guns don't go off by themselves. We could have 10x as many guns in this country, hand em' out for free even, and, barring negligence and stupidity, suicides and homicides would still drop dramatically if people weren't constantly DARED to use them every second of their existence. On themselves, on "others."
  Our media also glorifies weaponry as some kind of ultimate problem-solver. So much power to change something, ANYTHING, at the pull of a trigger. And so many people are so desperate to just affect something.
  If they had access to education, care, mental wellness, actually felt like they mattered, and weren't obviously seen to just be batteries and cattle by the ones designing and "influencing" this culture. Those guns wouldn't go off nearly so often.
  When we have teenagers and young adults contemplating their own deaths because a contented existence seems so out of touch and the struggle for better so hopeless, what happened??
  But the conversation seems to be less "How do we make a world where people DON'T wish to kill themselves or others so often?" And more "How do we stop them from doing it?"
  Which, at its most idealistic extreme, will simply produce a hell-world of limbless, miserable torso-brains with no way out of misery.
  Every day we carry on and try to love our neighbors, and make anything just a bit better, and forgive our enemies, and be content with what things we own, is a radical act of defiance against the principalities and powers that feed on the cultivation of our very worst selves.
Plus less stress due to a culture that values family and recreation time.
Don't underrate the amount of walking Europeans do compared to Americans. That casual exercise makes a huge difference. Europe is much more urban than the US and they generally walk a lot more than we do.
- The Gym of Life
  Not saying it's enough to be in the best shape of your life but it's really good for you.
About point 4, there is this really weird phenomenon that people going one way or the other replicate the same results without consciously changing the way you eat. Americans eating "unhealthy" in Europe get better and Europeans "eating healthy" in the US get worse.

Off work late? Hungry, but too tired to cook? Try 30 to 40 olives. 30 to 40 olives: an easy weeknight dinner. eat them directly out of the jar with your fingers. you will certainly not regret eating 30 to 40 olives.

So. Much. Sodium.
- Why is sodium bad?
- This is the only reason I pace myself. That and if I'm going to binge I'll rinse them first.
...this is why I rarely keep olives at home.
- Good point--they make a terrific snack in the office or on the go! 30 to 40 olives.... mmmmm
Olives? Just stab me, it'll be less painful.
I love olives. I didn't think you could have too many olives.
Once, on my honeymoon, I was at an expensive buffet. I found out just how many olives is too many olives. It was something like 35. More than that many olives is too many olives.

But it is healthy lifestyles that are leading to the increase life expectancy. Also healthy life's make universal health care cheaper.

Are you sayong that this is a positivity spiral?
Meme is funny, but this is the true reason. And universal hc is affordable in many countries because US enrollees subsidize it. Costs of medications here are significantly higher, as priced by the manufacturer to make profits and reinvest. The EU is a secondary market they play in to not look like total dicks. (I have been a part of this machine)

If eating olives makes you live longer, I'll just die young.

Yech.

But olive oil is amazing.
I hate whole olives, but a great olive oil with bread is one of the essential joys in this world.
- I'm okay with it as long as the taste isn't overpowering.
- Why do you think Doug Doug chugs olive oil, like full bottles of it, on streams sometimes
Upon hearing your anti olive stance OPEC (Olive Producing European Countries) have decided to have you executed. Once again proving that eating olives increases your life expectancy.
- Worth it.

Ummm Olives and Olive Oil are good for you and does lead to better health outcomes.

Access to medical care is a lot better for you than olives.
- Ummm Olives and Olive Oil are good for you and does lead to better health outcomes.
  Best I can do is olive flavored canola oil.
- No one is saying Olive in place of healthcare though. Just pointing out that you may not need as much health care if you eat right and Europeans eat better than Americans.
woooooosh

Not just universal health care but general lifestyle. But fast food, lack of amenities, and increasing reliance on cars will mean some Europeans turn into sedentary obese blobs and suffer the same health complications, if not expense, as their American counterparts.

We have fast food here, and in many places public transport is bad enough that you have to drive to not be fired for being late to work too many times.
It's just that with most healthcare concerns, we don't need to remortgage the house...
- Mostly a UK problem though. Source: British living in EU

otherwise known as superior civilization. downvote away, barbarians

Bravo!!

I would love to not have to pay $800usd +$200 monthly insurance just to get a questionable mole removed :')

It is quite shocking that it costs so much. Is it plastic surgery because it is in the middle of your face, or something?
I had a mole removed recently on my arm. It took a general practitioner about 15 minutes and all he used were some alcohol swabs, a scalpel, a syringe with something to numb my skin and some thread for closing the wound. How can that be 800 dollars plus insurance?
I checked my insurance and they paid €127,02 to remove it in total and then it was sent to the hospital to check whether it was cancer and that cost €120,16. (Fortunately, it was not cancer.) It was completely covered by my insurance, I never got that bill. That is a really big difference in price.
I am not posting this to be mean or something. I just wanted to know whether the difference is as big as I thought (and maybe also how angry I should be on your behalf). It is really unfair that you have to pay so much and that it is not covered by your insurance. I really hope that this stuff will change.
- They charge it because they can. No it wasn't plastic surgery or anything. And yep it took less than 15 minutes. Private Healthcare is robbery.
They take a little over one third of my pay check in taxes, which includes welfare (pension, etc) and healthcare, wealth tax and stuff.
You still pay for it, but when it really makes the difference is for the unlucky, who need lengthy and/or expensive care, they are supported by the better off, "mutual assistance".
Of course some people want to reap the benefits of living in a modern society without having to do their part.
- It is also much cheaper. The US spends double the amount of money per capita on healthcare than compareable western european countries.
  Universal healthcare is so much more efficient. When Obama was asked why he just wanted to do the ACA and not universal healthcare he said, that there is 3 million jobs in the adminsitrative side of private health insurance, that would fall away otherwise. But those people could work other jobs and provide a benefit to the economy. The inefficiency of the US system is insane.
- Bub. Including the amount I end up paying for Healthcare, they take way over a third of my paycheck.
  Edit- also hold up, you still get pensions over there??

Waiting lists are long over here in the US too, depending on the specialty and region. We're simply overpaying for the same quality healthcare while still failing to get 100% coverage.
- This is incorrect.
  We are overpaying for lower quality healthcare.
  We have worse outcomes than countries with free healthcare.
  As my father used to say "it may be bad, but it's expensive."
- Yes the exception is places like Massachusetts, which has some of the best quality healthcare in the world. But, you guessed it, they have a universal healthcare system similar to Germany.
- My doctor just moved and became one of those. I'm very mad at her for leaving cus she's freaking awesome.
- My son's pediatrician operates her practice in a "direct primary care" model, which is sort of concierge-light with a significantly lower monthly fee. There are some catches, and it doesn't replace proper insurance so I'm still paying for that on top of the monthly office fee. But on the other hand, our appointments aren't a rush-job where we get like five minutes of face-time with the pediatrician and then shuttled out the door, and we can message her any time of the day to ask "yo what's this rash" and usually get an answer (and occasionally a script for an ointment) within a half-hour, without having to go through the rigamarole of trying to get an appointment that's usually so far out you're better off waiting and hoping the problem resolves itself.
Is this the UK? As (company) private schemes in the UK allow you to jump the queue, pushing people who cant or wont pay further back down the queue.
Its also significantly cheaper than the actual cost of a fully privatised solution because its subsidised by the NHS.
Majority of Doctors and Nurses who do private work spend the bulk of their working week for the NHS, and a large percentage of them were trained by the NHS.
Do I blame people who go private because they do not want to wait? No, but its also not a good argument for further privatisation as further expansion of this system reduces capacity of the NHS.