US last in preventable deaths

[Popeye]

Definitely another argument for universal health care. Notice who's no. 1, oh, that terrible "socialized medicine."

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.

They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a country's health care system.

Nolte said the large number of Americans who lack any type of health insurance -- about 47 million people in a country of about 300 million, according to U.S. government estimates -- probably was a key factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other industrialized nations in the study.

"I wouldn't say it (the last-place ranking) is a condemnation, because I think health care in the U.S. is pretty good if you have access. But if you don't, I think that's the main problem, isn't it?" Nolte said in a telephone interview.

In establishing their rankings, the researchers considered deaths before age 75 from numerous causes, including heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, diabetes, certain bacterial infections and complications of common surgical procedures.

Such deaths accounted for 23 percent of overall deaths in men and 32 percent of deaths in women, the researchers said.

France did best -- with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said

After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last.

http://www.reuters.com/article/news...08?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

 

[Libsmasher]

.

WE are used to these not credible studies that blame everything on the american non-socialized health care. The real reasons are probably related to the obesity epidemic in this country (that due to the omnipresence of cheap food) and the social pathologies of minorities. The poor in this country ARE covered by Medicaid - if they don't go to the doctor, that's on them. Remember how they try to claim the US has high infant mortality with blatantly rigged statistics? People should take "studies" like this with a grain of salt.

 

[ilikeboobs]

Does preventable death include diseases that are entirely preventable - such as deaths by AIDS, diabetes, hypertension, COPD, etc...? Did you ever stop to think that the diets of those countries mentioned above are far less nasty than the diets of Americans? It's not the the US has the worst healthcare, it's that the US has the worst lifestyle. There's a fast food restaurant on every corner...duh!

Stop having butt sex with disease-ridden filth, eat right, exercise and don't smoke. You'll live longer than any Frenchy on earth. And if you get cancer and need an emergency operation, I'll bet you'd rather have an American doctor working on you than some eurotrash chimp.

And where do sick people around the world go for health care? It sure ain't France. I live within 50 miles of the Mayo Clinic in MN. The town it's in (Rochester) is nothing more than a hospital town. But they had to build an airport to take care of all the foreign leaders and big wigs from around the world who come here REGULARLY for their healthcare.

And I'm pretty sure it's not run by the government...

 

[palerider]

I recently read an article which said that over 7 million people in the UK haven't seen a denitist in more than 2 years. They can't get an appointment. People are pulling their own teeth with household pliers.

Socialized medicine? Thanks but no thanks.

 

[bewitched]

I recently read an article which said that over 7 million people in the UK haven't seen a denitist in more than 2 years. They can't get an appointment. People are pulling their own teeth with household pliers.

Socialized medicine? Thanks but no thanks.

that's part of a long tradition of bad teeth in the UK.

as far as death goes... we need more of it. this place is too crowded.

 

[Popeye]

I recently read an article which said that over 7 million people in the UK haven't seen a denitist in more than 2 years. They can't get an appointment. People are pulling their own teeth with household pliers.

Socialized medicine? Thanks but no thanks.

This survey is about ten years old, but I doubt if much has changed. It demonstrates that many lower income children, in the US, don't go to the dentist either, because they lack health insurance.http://www.urban.org/publications/309527.html

Nationally, 30 percent of low-income children received no dental care in the previous year and nearly 60 percent failed to receive recommended minimum levels of care. Among low-income children, deficits in dental services use appear greatest among those who lack health insurance.

 

[ilikeboobs]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...SFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/02/nhs102.xml

Apparently Brits are being told to medicate themselves, too, to keep costs down for the commie medicine plan. ha ha ha!!! I love the USA, baby!

 

[Popeye]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...SFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/02/nhs102.xml

Apparently Brits are being told to medicate themselves, too, to keep costs down for the commie medicine plan. ha ha ha!!! I love the USA, baby!

If you love the USA so much, why not put up your real location, instead of something which makes me question your age.

While Gordon Brown's new proposals for the NHS have been controversial, the British obviously feel it is a system worth keeping, as now the Conservative party is pledging to become "the party of the NHS.'

Conservatives 'to become party of the NHS'

David Cameron has set out his stall to make the Conservatives the party of the NHS, in a direct challenge to Gordon Brown.
The Tory leader used the 60th anniversary of the founding of the health service to make his pitch to oust Labour as the guardians of the NHS.

Previous Conservative administrations have faced criticism for under-funding the NHS and policy proposals such as health vouchers have been met with voter disapproval.

But polls have shown Labour losing its traditional lead as the party most trusted to run the NHS and Mr Cameron sought to highlight public fears over MRSA and health reforms.

"In this, the NHS's 60th year, the Conservative Party has an historic opportunity: to replace Labour as the party of the NHS," he said. "That's quite an aspiration – but I believe it is our duty to live up to it. To be the party of the NHS is an honour that must be earned."


"Money should attend success, not failure," he said. "This is a means of hard-wiring infection control into the system.

"Quite simply, the option of gaining or losing patients is the most effective spur to improvement on the part of doctors, hospitals and other care providers."

Mr Cameron also said his party would scrap all centrally imposed targets and would focus on treatment outcomes, such as cancer survival rates.

He warned that people could not rely on the "increasing sophistication of science to save us from the consequences of our own decisions" and should instead be self-disciplined in taking exercise and reducing alcohol intake.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, said the government was already fining hospitals with high rates of infection and reinvesting the money back into the health system.

http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Conservatives-39to-become-party-of.3635976.jp

 

[ilikeboobs]

If you love the USA so much, why not put up your real location, instead of something which makes me question your age.

While Gordon Brown's new proposals for the NHS have been controversial, the British obviously feel it is a system worth keeping, as now the Conservative party is pledging to become "the party of the NHS.'


http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Conservatives-39to-become-party-of.3635976.jp

I had my real location up for a long time (Minnesota), and no one seemed to give a crap. So I changed it - and now I'm a child because of that? Brainiac...

Maybe the Brits are so used to their liberal freebies that they refuse to ever give it up. Not so different from Medicare or Social Security. You think anyone receiving those benefits would ever say, "heck yes, let's end the program because I'm going to take charge of my own life and be responsible for my own future"? I think not.

And the conservatives in England are probably just resigning themselves to that fact, as are many republicans in the US who refuse to go against social security reform out of fear of being dumped by voters.

 

[bewitched]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...SFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/02/nhs102.xml

Apparently Brits are being told to medicate themselves, too, to keep costs down for the commie medicine plan. ha ha ha!!! I love the USA, baby!

everything was home medicine until about 100 years ago.
now we are all pharmaceudical whores.

 

[Popeye]

everything was home medicine until about 100 years ago.
now we are all pharmaceudical whores.

That's because Dr.s are paid millions by the pharmaceutical companies to prescribe their brand of drugs.

Here's an article showing how doctors have been paid hundreds of millions to prescribe drugs for anemia.

In a for profit medical system it's all about the almighty dollar.

 

[palerider]

everything was home medicine until about 100 years ago.
now we are all pharmaceudical whores.

What was the life expectancy 100 years ago?

The fact is that socialized medicine is failing everywhere it is tried including the UK. Socialized medicine isn't about getting better care, it is about equality and any thinking person knows that euqality only exists at the lowest common denominator. No one gets better care under socialized medicine, everyone is forced into the same crappy care.

Show me a plan where everyone gets superior care and no one sits down to die on a waiting list for treatment that is considered routine here in the US and we will have something to talk about. Otherwise, to me, you are nothing more than a victim of a terrible system trying to convince me how good you have it when I know different.

 

[Popeye]

What was the life expectancy 100 years ago?

The fact is that socialized medicine is failing everywhere it is tried including the UK. Socialized medicine isn't about getting better care, it is about equality and any thinking person knows that euqality only exists at the lowest common denominator. No one gets better care under socialized medicine, everyone is forced into the same crappy care.

Show me a plan where everyone gets superior care and no one sits down to die on a waiting list for treatment that is considered routine here in the US and we will have something to talk about. Otherwise, to me, you are nothing more than a victim of a terrible system trying to convince me how good you have it when I know different.

And you show me a country with universal healthcare in which nearly 20% of it's citizens have no care at all, such as in the US.http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/medical/

 

[Popeye]

Here's something else to be proud of:

From Wikipedia

Americans without health insurance coverage at some time during 2006 totalled about 16% of the population, or 47 million people. Health insurance is expensive, and medical bills are overwhelmingly the most common reason for personal bankruptcy in the United States.

Of course, now that uninsured number is closer to 20%.

You tell all those folks how happy they should be living in a country with a for profit health care system

 

[Cookie Parker]

No, the real reason for the study is that our for profit medicine is causing doctors and hospitals to make decisions based upon profit..that's it..nothing more..