Posted on 08/12/2009 9:26:10 AM PDT by WhiteCastle
Why do the British lag behind American survival rates? Screening standards are different. In the United States, internists recommend that men 50 and older get screened for colon cancer; in the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, screening begins at 75. And British patients wait much longer to see specialists. A Clinical Oncology study of British lung cancer treatment found in 2000 that 20% "of potentially curable patients became incurable on the waiting list." Novel drugs offered here often aren't available there; for instance, Avastin, a drug for advanced colon cancer, is prescribed more often in the U.S. than in the UK, by some estimates as much as ten-fold more.
A drug called Temodal is the U.S. standard of care for Sen. Kennedy's type of brain cancer. In Britain, a government body charged with funding decisions—the euphemistically named NICE, or National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence -- ruled in 2001 that Temodal wasn't worth the money as a first-line treatment; in 2007, they partially lifted the prohibition. Patients can still get the drug, they just need to pay out of pocket—for all their cancer care. The National Health Service recently ruled that if patients opt out of one type of care (say by getting Temodal), they opt out of all publicly funded care.
(Excerpt) Read more at manhattan-institute.org ...
Canada’s cancer death rate is 16% higher than in the US. If Obamacare was here 8 years ago, my wife would be DEAD!
bttt
Yeah, but how’s it stack up to Rwanda? I hear they’re cutting edge there... /sarc
I had cancer last year, and I HAVE GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE. Since I am too young for Medicare, am an entrepreneur with no insurance, and am a service disabled veteran, I use the VA hospital.
The VA employee docs DAMN NEAR KILLED ME by ignoring my obvious symptoms for over 6 months. The Primary Care docs (GPs or Physician Assistants) act like they work at the DMV. They show no compassion, common sense, or motivation. Honestly, the VA gets docs who CANNOT MAKE IT IN PRIVATE PRACTICE BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD WANT THEM.
Mind you, the docs who treated my cancer were GREAT. However, they are contractors, not government employees.
Furthermore, the entire hospital is one big patronage/affirmative action project. Once again, many of the employees are good, however, you can readily see that there are a lot of UNFIRE-ABLE, useless government drones that the management keeps out of sight.
I don’t want to blast the entire VA. There are a lot of great, caring employees. However, unionized civil service GUARANTEEs that poor performers will stay on the payroll forever.
BTW, I have supported Affirmative Action as a policy measure in the past. However, if 80% of your employees are minority, that’s going way beyond affirmative action to pure political patronage.
Liberals don’t care about the terminally ill. Too many sick bodies are a burden to the government machine and toxic to mother Earth.
It isn't fair to the rest of the world for us to be better!
I have read that the UK wants to do away with routine mammography - not cost effective.
Chuck-You-Schumer has it correct on the health care issue, this is what will happen on the new plan for all health care (rationing and waiting periods).
This is on his website from March 2001.
Life expectancy and infant mortality statistics comparing US to Europe and Canada are very flawed.
US has a much higher homicide rate and auto deaths which are not health care issues.
also -——
Infant mortality statistics are difficult to compare because other countries don’t count as live births infants below a certain weight or gestational age. June E. O’Neill and Dave M. O’Neill found that Canada’s infant mortality would be higher than ours if Canadians had as many low-weight births (the U.S. has almost three times as many teen mothers, who tend to give birth to lower-weight infants).
A better measure of a country’s health care is how well it actually treats patients. The CONCORD study published in 2008 found that the five-year survival rate for cancer (adjusted for other causes of death) is much higher in the United States than in Europe (e.g., 91.9% vs. 57.1% for prostate cancer, 83.9% vs. 73% for breast cancer, 60.1% vs. 46.8% for men with colon cancer, and 60.1 vs. 48.4% for women with colon cancer). The United Kingdom, which has had government-run health care since 1948, has survival rates lower than those for Europe as a whole.
Proponents of government-run health care argue that more preventive care will be provided. However, a 2007 Commonwealth Fund report comparing the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom found that the U.S. was #1 in preventive care. Eighty-five percent of U.S. women age 25-64 reported that they had a Pap test in the past two years (compared to 58% in the United Kingdom); 84% of U.S. women age 50-64 reported that they had a mammogram in the past two years (compared to 63% in the United Kingdom).
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_cost_of_free_government_he_1.html
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