NEOAVATARA

The Hoover Institute has a nice piece on some of the confusion about American Health Care.  I recommend everyone read the article, posted here.  But here is some outlines:

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

Cancer is one of the biggest differences.  In general, we have higher life expectancies with most cancers than anywhere else in the world.  Why?  First, we do more tests, which certainly cost a lot more money.  But we also tend to identify cancers at earlier stages.  Second, we are much more aggressive in treatment of cancers.

American Health care is not perfect.  And it certainly is not universal.  But Democrats use fearmongering when they say our care isn’t excellent.  Can we do a better job in preventative care?  Absolutely.  Can we improve health care for chronic diseases?  Most certainly.  But to say that other health care systems are significantly better than ours is simply false.  They may have some advantages here and there, but there are virtually no other country in the world that people would rather choose if they had unlimited money to be treated in than the United States.  The real task is to make sure that everyone in society has access to the best care in the world.