[CRoss]

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/ba649.pdf

10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care


Tuesday, March 24, 2009
by Scott Atlas

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government rôle in health care. Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered.

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.[1] Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.[2] Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[3] Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.[4] Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:
Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."[5]


Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.[6] All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.[7] In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.[8]

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding."[9]

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).[10]

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.[11] [See the table.] The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.[12]

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.[13] The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country.[14] Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined.[15] In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.[16] [See the table.]



Conclusion. Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.

Scott W. Atlas, M.D., is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center. A version of this article appeared previously in the February 18, 2009, Washington Times.

***********
Citations: HERE

On the radio today they mentioned a new poll says 70% of Americans are happy with thee private health insurance.

Now I will admit the health care system is not perfect. There are things that need fixed but to make it controlled by the government is not the way to go.

 

[ohio]

Now I will admit the health care system is not perfect. There are things that need fixed but to make it controlled by the government is not the way to go.

Great article and all rolleyes, but what the does your commentary have to do with the article, or the reality of current health care proposals.

Sounds like you've been sucked in by rhetoric about "nationalizing" without actually reading up on any of it. You're not going to get the bigger picture by only listening to a one word long explanation from an ideological, inexpert, highly biased source.

 

[dante]

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/ba649.pdf




On the radio today they mentioned a new poll says 70% of Americans are happy with thee private health insurance.

Now I will admit the health care system is not perfect. There are things that need fixed but to make it controlled by the government is not the way to go.

You've got to be joking...

#1 & #2 are virtually the same, and are a direct result of #4.

#5 is based on self diagnosis, and do you really want to be touting the fact that 11% of people with less than the median income (so basically half of all middle-class and all poor people) describe their health as excellent? That means that 89% of people in that income range list their health as something other than excellent...

#7 - Ok, how many Americans feel that there should be "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding" of our health care system? My guess is it's more than 70%, or else they would've touted it in their "facts".

#8 I'm assuming disregards those without access to health care, since it specifically says how happy they are with the services they received. If they didn't receive any, they're dropped from the "study".

And after ALL of these wonderful facts and figures about how GREAT our health care system, none of them explain why:

1) We're #27 on the list of nations in life expectancy (below Denmark but above Cuba. Take that commies!!)
2) We spend on average $4500/citizen on health care, and yet have 46 million (18% of people under 65) with no health care.

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php

So list all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but we're paying far far FAR more for health care and receiving far less benefit of it. Ignore them if you want, but those 18% of Americans with no health care whatsoever are always going to pull down those pesky "average statistics"...

 

[CRoss]

2) We spend on average $4500/citizen on health care, and yet have 46 million (18% of people under 65) with no health care.

So the other 82% should lower the quality of their health care so the other 18% can have coverage?

The universal coverage systems around the world are not as great as we are sometimes lead to believe. I do not want the government to determine if and when I can get a procedure done. Something that has already been put into motion with the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill Obama signed establishes the office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. This new office "provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care,” This doesn't mean they will but the door is wide open if they want to.


I will take our current health care system any day over Sweden's universal health care.
http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/larson.pdf

 

[Silver]

I don't have time to refute astroturf bull**** from someone from the Hoover Institute. If I wanted to do something that useless, I'd pray...

 

[stevew]

I don't have time to refute astroturf bull**** from someone from the Hoover Institute. If I wanted to do something that useless, I'd pray...

snickering

 

[Defenestrated]

So the other 82% should lower the quality of their health care so the other 18% can have coverage?

The universal coverage systems around the world are not as great as we are sometimes lead to believe. I do not want the government to determine if and when I can get a procedure done. Something that has already been put into motion with the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill Obama signed establishes the office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. This new office "provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care,” This doesn't mean they will but the door is wide open if they want to.


I will take our current health care system any day over Sweden's universal health care.
http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/larson.pdf

Uhh go for private care then?! The fact remains that health care costs are a leading cause of bankruptcies when they could easily be a non issue.

Just a little taste.

 

[Toshi]

thanks for saving me some time, dante.

You've got to be joking...

i agree, this is a farce. let me demonstrate why from a medical perspective.

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers" including breast, prostate, and colon cancer. citation: kamangar et al, j clin onc 2006, "patterns of cancer incidence...".

figures:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/795/picture1qon.png
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4549/picture2qsc.png
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4446/picture3sge.png
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7357/picture4snt.png

the "fact" is refuted by the tables above when it comes to breast and prostate cancer, and their statement, while apparently true for colon cancer when comparing north america and europe, ignores that the western world (including us) has far higher colon cancer rates than the developing world, probably because of the junk we eat and how fat we are.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower [breast, prostate, and colon] cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States. citation: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13429

they are full of crap again. their source says the US has HIGHER breast and prostate cancer mortality, but does confirm that the colon cancer rate is lower in the US, possibly due to demographics.

age-adjusted mortality numbers from their cited source:
breast cancer mortality 25.6 in the US, 24.5 in Canada
prostate cancer mortality 27.9 in the US, 25.2 in Canada
colorectal cancer mortality 16.5 in the US, 17.5 in Canada

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[

this equates statins with good health care. this is not true.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians

- first they cite mammogram availability. as much as this is an emotional heart-string-pulling issue, it's still up for debate whether the cost:benefit ratio of mammography is sufficiently low to justify their widespread use.
- next they compare 96 vs. "less than 90%" Pap smear rates. ok, fine, if they aren't pulling this stat out of their ass as they did in the first two "facts".
- next they cite PSA testing. prostate specific antigen testing is not cost effective per our own medical literature and is not a good metric by any means for health care systems performance.
- finally they mention colonoscopy. they don't mention what other testing might be done in other countries, such as hemoccult card testing or sigmoidoscopy. without such context this number is useless and misleading.

#5 is based on self diagnosis

enough said. i would bet that objective measures such as obesity, hypertension, and heart disease are higher among poor americans, yet they cite a self-reported metric. garbage.

fact 6, waiting time. ok, fine. i'm too lazy to see if this is actually true, but as long as emergent conditions are treated emergently it's fine from my perspective.

#7 - Ok, how many Americans feel that there should be "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding" of our health care system? My guess is it's more than 70%, or else they would've touted it in their "facts".

ditto.

fact 8, self-reported US vs. canada health system satisfaction.

from their source, the percentage of people somewhat or very dissatisfied with their health care:
US 18-64 years old 6.8
Canada 18-64 years old 8.5
US 65+ years old 5.3
Canada 65+ years old 6.1

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K.

access to technology is worthless if it doesn't improve outcomes.

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

irrelevant if people don't have access to these innovations, and these innovations don't improve outcomes.

 

[Toshi]

i agree, this is a farce. let me demonstrate why from a medical perspective.

Cliffs Notes: their stats are wrong and they cite irrelevant metrics. this list is worthless.

 

[Defenestrated]

toshi slams the dunk

But I think fact number 10 is just total bull****, fairly certain medical advances come out of Europe too.

 

[dante]

So the other 82% should lower the quality of their health care so the other 18% can have coverage?

The universal coverage systems around the world are not as great as we are sometimes lead to believe. I do not want the government to determine if and when I can get a procedure done. Something that has already been put into motion with the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill Obama signed establishes the office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. This new office "provides appropriate information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care,” This doesn't mean they will but the door is wide open if they want to.

So you'd rather have a for profit corporation make those decisions for you instead?

 

[DaveW]

Number 7 is a load of crap.
70% want restructuring of the health system in NZ?
I doubt that very much.

 

[kidwoo]

It's so cute to watch young, burgening, right wing blowhards develop.

 

[sanjuro]

Cliffs Notes: their stats are wrong and they cite irrelevant metrics. this list is worthless.

That's what I thought. Thanks for the 411.

 

[X3pilot]

Is it being to simplistic to think that the current system sure doesn't fit our needs and doesn't work so maybe let's try to explore some other options?

I'd prefer to go into an emergency room and be seen in a reasonable time frame for an emergency than have to wait in line with folks that come in with ordinary ailments because they have no type of insurance.


And no, Cross, the other 82% doesn't have to expect to lower their quality of care to get the other 18% covered, but they do owe those folks some effort on their part to improve the system, whether it be campaigning and supporting a policy or doing accurate internet research to see what would really benefit the nation as a whole.

 

[Jm_]

What, a 4yr old thread you can google (life expectancy)?

 

[mattmatt86]

Epic Necro Troll

 

[JohnE]

And look, sh!tty grammar too!

 

[$tinkle]

since we're trolling...

sawbuck if you can fap to this

 

[stevew]

i find it hard to believe that megyn kelly has cranked out three kids in the last 4 years.....

 

[Jim Mac]

i find it hard to believe that megyn kelly has cranked out three kids in the last 4 years.....

C-Section & personal trainer.

 

[$tinkle]

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225540

 

[syadasti]

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225540

Fox isn't even that dumb:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-greta-van-susteren-out-journalisms-cbs-news-on-florida-womans-junk-insurance/

 

[Pesqueeb]

Fox isn't even that dumb:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-greta-van-susteren-out-journalisms-cbs-news-on-florida-womans-junk-insurance/

Even a blind squirrel.......

 

[rideit]

i find it hard to believe that megyn kelly has cranked out three kids in the last 4 years.....

I know, right? She comes across as being too dumb to breed.

 

[$tinkle]

I know, right? She comes across as being too dumb to breed.

the inner city sees what you did there

war room doc

"There were 6 Servers, and 4 of them didn’t have the right production data."

6 servers? 1 for each successful enrollee?

oops.

 

[$tinkle]

http://gizmodo.com/these-guys-just-built-the-website-healthcare-gov-should-1458215436

#thereifixedit

 

[jonKranked]

http://gizmodo.com/these-guys-just-built-the-website-healthcare-gov-should-1458215436

#thereifixedit

see what happens when the gov't contracts things out to the lowest possible bidder? these guys probably built their site in their dorm room in between bong rips

 

[$tinkle]

see what happens when the gov't contracts things out to the lowest possible bidder?

it's worse than that: an RFP will normally have clauses that a company must be XYZ compliant (i.e., outdated or irrelevant certs), have 80% staffed at a certain education level, but pay no attention from where these degrees come (univ o' phx, devry, mumbai state, etc.), must have a GSA schedule/filing ID. and don't get me started on 8(a) set-asides or SVDOSBs...it's the #1 reason why my team is weak

largely, gov't contracting is a feedback loop; a sh|t-eating centipede

"due diligence"
"soft bigotry of low expectations"

 

[Andyman_1970]

^^^^^^"The bar is set, let's don't trip over it.............."

 

[jonKranked]

^^^^^^"The bar is set, let's don't trip over it.............."

james cameron: randy newman? what are you doing down here?