US dead last in health care

[Canuckistani]

Wow. The US spends a much greater proportion of it's GDP on health care than any of the other 16 countries listed, but comes dead last in health. Not really getting value for their money. Going to a single payer system like ours would save them maybe 7% of GDP a year = 1 trillion a year. This would wipe out their annual deficit in one fell swoop, and they might even become healthier in the bargain.

http://www.theatlant...ad-last/267045/

The results surprised even the researchers. To their alarm, they said, they found a "strikingly consistent and pervasive" pattern of poorer health at all stages of life, from infancy to childhood to adolescence to young adulthood to middle and old age. Compared to people in other developed nations, Americans die far more often from injuries and homicides. We suffer more deaths from alcohol and other drugs, and endure some of the worst rates of heart disease, lung disease, obesity, and diabetes.

• The highest rate of death by violence, by a stunning margin
  
• The highest rate of death by car accident, also dramatically so
  
• The highest chance that a child will die before age 5
  
• The second-highest rate of death by coronary heart disease
  
• The second-highest rate of death by lung disease
  
• The highest teen pregnancy rate
  
• The highest rate of women dying due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth
  

Edited January 11, 2013 by Canuckistani

[bush_cheney2004]

No thanks.....the U.S. spends more and gets more in the way of less wait time, much better diagnostic imaging, better cancer survival, etc. Playing the "Canada is Best" health care game once again:

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.

http://winteryknight...-united-states/

Just for extra credit, more Canadians seek health care in the U.S. than do Americans going to Canada, and the U.S. has ten times the population. This is because many Canadians with the means to do so travel out of province to avoid agonizing wait times. Several provinces routinely send Canadian patients to the U.S. because of lacking facilities and or available health care professionals.

Edited January 11, 2013 by bush_cheney2004

[Wilber]

2011 statistics rank the US at #1 in per capita spending and 38th in life expectancy. Canada ranks 10th in both.

[bush_cheney2004]

2011 statistics rank the U.S. at #1 in a few categories.....Canada ranks #1 in zero categories.

Didn't a member here say that Canadians are still wiping poop on fecal occult test cards for colon cancer screening, while Americans are routinely getting colonoscopies with concurrent polyp removal ?

Edited January 11, 2013 by bush_cheney2004

[Canuckistani]

[bud]

Just for extra credit, more Canadians seek health care in the U.S. than do Americans going to Canada,

what a silly comment to make considering you're trying to compare private american healthcare that cost thousands of dollars that only a wealthy canadian could afford to canadian public healthcare, made for the canadian public.

stop embarrassing yourself. just admit that the american healthcare system is an inefficient joke.

[guyser]

Lets look at this...

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers

Ok no Canada mentioned

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.

Yup , apppears so.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.

They have better access.....full stop. Meaning they can get those drugs but arent prescribed . No conclusion drawn , just a muddying of the waters so he can make a list of ten. Wonderful!

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.

Again....does not say anything that is comparative. Just says more have had them done.

]5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.

[/b]

Did you not see the 'self reported ' part of that one? Again, more filler to make ten

.

]6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.

[/b]

Probably true, but no mention of any US wait times and we know they exist and are a problem. However one glaring ommission is that in the USA plenty of people cannot afford the specialists, let alone any after care.

By the way, elective hip surgery? Uh...someones fudging the figures again.

]7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.

[/b]

Heres the thing.....self reported once again.

Not to mention we are not happy with some aspects of our healthcare and want improvements.

Seems Americans are happy not insuring 40+ million people ...ok.

8.

Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.

Geebus, anyone can see thru this one.

Self reported for starters.

Only those with healthcare plans in the US were surveyed.

Why not canvas all Americans. I m betting those 40M not asked might skew the results somewhat.

9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.

And yet.,.....they die sooner!

Damn, I would rather have better access and not use it than have less access and live longer

.

]10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

[/b]

And no info to back it up. I for one dont really doubt its validity but that can be ascribed to various reasons including out of country innovators running trials in the US to 50%+ 1 is most.

No doubt the US is a major player on the innovation front.

Several provinces routinely send Canadian patients to the U.S. because of lacking facilities and or available health care professionals.

Not at all for those reasons. We do it because it is the best econmical way to get the treatment done. We like it, your hospitals love it !

[Guest American Woman]

2011 statistics rank the US at #1 in per capita spending and 38th in life expectancy. Canada ranks 10th in both.

Canada ranks as high as it does in life expectancy, in part, because of your high immigration rate per capita - and your rigorous health screening/requirements - and nonacceptance of anyone with a disability. Such as this incident: A French family who immigrated to Montreal after being wooed by a Canadian embassy official in Paris has now been told they must leave the country because their daughter has cerebral palsy and places an "excessive burden on social services." It's called the "healthy immigrant effect."

Also, Canada wouldn't be faring as well it does if U.S. health care services weren't available as a 'safety net;' if it weren't possible to send patients to the U.S. when Canada lacks the facilities/capability to treat them. That helps the Canadian government spend less of it's GDP on health care, and it provides Canadians with care/services not available within their country.

[bush_cheney2004]

Sure...it is so inefficient that Canadian provinces routinely pay for "American Healthcare" rather than invest in the necessary facilities and professional staff. For instance, it is easy to find stories about Canadian infants still being rushed to American hospitals for proper neonatal care because of a shortage of beds back home. The Americans pay more...have more...and get more....from boob jobs to heart transplants. Canada couldn't even meet blood bank or other plasma needs without imports from U.S. federal prisons! This led to the infamous Hep C tainted blood fiasco, for which Canada is still paying.

It's been a while since we had yet another fun health care thread bragging about how great things are compared to what's available in the U.S. I hope my comments do nothing to ruin the grand illusion.

[bush_cheney2004]

Lets look at this...

.....Not at all for those reasons. We do it because it is the best econmical way to get the treatment done. We like it, your hospitals love it !

So you admit the the U.S. is more economical for Canadian provinces, as the American public and private systems have already made the expensive investments that cheapskates in Canada can't afford or choose not to do, because there is no incentive to do so. Thank you.

[dre]

Gosh... Looks like the Americans on here WANT crappy healthcare and gigantic deficits. To each their own I guess.

[Canuckistani]

Gosh... Looks like the Americans on here WANT crappy healthcare and gigantic deficits. To each their own I guess.

As somebody said, their motto is "live free and die."

[Guest American Woman]

Gosh... Looks like the Americans on here WANT crappy healthcare and gigantic deficits. To each their own I guess.

Why don't you try adding something to the discussion instead of making totally ignorant comments about what *I* "want."

[Guest American Woman]

As somebody said, their motto is "live free and die."

The somebody doesn't know what they are talking about.

[Canuckistani]

The somebody doesn't know what they are talking about.

Maybe, but it was an American.

Co-author Paula Braveman, who directs the Center on Social Disparities in Health at University of California, San Francisco, said the panel grappled with this question as it searched for explanations for our poor health: "Is it Americans' rugged individualism and the sense that the most important thing is the individual's freedom, and that's so much more important than doing what's right for society?"

Might our national M.O., in other words, be summed up as "Live free and die"?

Edited January 11, 2013 by Canuckistani

[bush_cheney2004]

No worries....it's just another "crappy American health care thread" just like so many that have gone before. It won't stop the reality of Canadians traveling to the USA for care, from high profile PMs/MPs to Joe Hockey from Hamilton.

See y'all at the Mayo Clinic when your ass is on the line!

[Canuckistani]

That damn Atlantic magazine, always publishing that commie Canadian crap. And those people at the American Public Health Association who published the study - probably paid stooges of the commie Canadians.

[Guest American Woman]

Maybe, but it was an American.

Perhaps your recall is incorrect. At any rate, it's "live free OR die" - which is something altogether different from what you said (and actually makes sense) - and it's the motto of New Hampshire, not the U.S.

Edited January 11, 2013 by American Woman

[Canuckistani]

Perhaps your recall is incorrect. At any rate, it's "live free OR die" - which is something altogether different from what you said (and actually makes sense) - and it's the motto of New Hampshire, not the U.S.

Take a look at my post - I edited it to show my recall is very much correct. It's one of the authors of this study saying it, and she and I are well aware of New Hampshire's motto - she's making a riff off it to make a point. Not all Americans will get it, of course.

[dre]

Why don't you try adding something to the discussion instead of making totally ignorant comments about what *I* "want."

Cause there is no discussion. Just your defensiveness and denial as usual.

[bush_cheney2004]

Well, we already know there are lots of Canadian Commies living and working in the U.S. Apparently there are more job opportunities and lower taxes in the U.S. too. Having access to better/faster American health care is just a plus !

If I was a Canadian with high health risk factors, I would live close to the border too. Oh wait...most Canadians already live close to the U.S. border....very smart !

Edited January 11, 2013 by bush_cheney2004

[Canuckistani]

Well, we already know there are lots of Canadian Commies living and working in the U.S. Apparently there are more job opportunities and lower taxes in the U.S. too. Having access to better/faster American health care is just a plus !

If I was a Canadian with high health risk factors, I would live close to the border too.

Just don't step over it, or you'll die much sooner.

[Guest American Woman]

Cause there is no discussion. Just your defensiveness and denial as usual.

I denied nothing. I made points. Perhaps your time might be better spent taking a remedial reading course than adding nothing to discussions here.

[dre]

No you didnt make any points and you didnt express a single opinion on the threads topic as usual.

The results surprised even the researchers. To their alarm, they said, they found a "strikingly consistent and pervasive" pattern of poorer health at all stages of life, from infancy to childhood to adolescence to young adulthood to middle and old age. Compared to people in other developed nations, Americans die far more often from injuries and homicides. We suffer more deaths from alcohol and other drugs, and endure some of the worst rates of heart disease, lung disease, obesity, and diabetes.

Tell us how you feel about that?

[bush_cheney2004]

Just don't step over it, or you'll die much sooner.

I'd rather die sooner in the U.S. than live longer waiting in a long, suffering line in Canada.