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Survive in America DIE in Europe!!! Just how much better is American MEDICINE?? ALOT!!!!!?

READ THIS>>> Die in Britain, Survive In The US James Bartholomew The Spectator Which is better — American or British medical care? If a defender of the National Health Service wants to win the argument against a free market alternative, he declares, ‘You wouldn’t want healthcare like they have in America, would you?’ That is the knock-out blow. Everyone knows the American system is horrible. You arrive in hospital, desperately ill, and they ask to see your credit card. If you haven’t got one, they boot you out. It is, surely, a heartless, callous, unthinkable system. American healthcare is unbridled capitalism, red in the blood of the untreated poor. For goodness’ sake, the American system is so bad that even Americans — plenty of them anyway, if not all — want to give it up. They want something more like the Canadian system or our own National Health Service. That is what Hillary Clinton wanted and there are still plenty of people like her around. Tony Judt, in a recent edition of the New York Review of Books, was damning about American medical care and glowing about European healthcare. Think of all the money that is wasted in America invoicing patients and administering lots of separate, independent hospitals. At the same time, we can’t help being aware that back here in Britain the NHS is not exactly perfect. The waiting lists have come down, according to the government. They have probably come down somewhat in reality, too. But they still exist and, come to that, there is the worryingly high incidence of hospital infections. So is British healthcare better than American? Or the other way round? And how do you judge? Let’s try the simple way first. Suppose you come down with one of the big killer illnesses like cancer. Where do you want to be — London or New York? In Lincoln, Nebraska or Lincoln, Lincolnshire? Forget the money — we will come back to that — where do you have the best chance of staying alive? The answer is clear. If you are a woman with breast cancer in Britain, you have (or at least a few years ago you had, since all medical statistics are a few years old) a 46 per cent chance of dying from it. In America, your chances of dying are far lower — only 25 per cent. Britain has one of the worst survival rates in the advanced world and America has the best. If you are a man and you are diagnosed as having cancer of the prostate in Britain, you are more likely to die of it than not. You have a 57 per cent chance of departing this life. But in America you are likely to live. Your chances of dying from the disease are only 19 per cent. Once again, Britain is at the bottom of the class and America at the top. How about colon cancer? In Britain, 40 per cent survive for five years after diagnosis. In America, 60 per cent do. With cancer of the oesophagus, survival rates are low all round the world. In Britain, a mere 7 per cent of patients live for five years after diagnosis. In America, the survival rate is still low, but much better at 12 per cent. The more one looks at the figures for survival, the more obvious it is that if you have a medical problem your chances are dramatically better in America than in Britain. That is why those who are rich enough often go to America, leaving behind even private British healthcare. One reason is wonderfully simple. In America, you are more likely to be treated. And going back a stage further, you are more likely to get the diagnostic tests which lead to treatment. Fewer than one third of British patients who have had a heart attack are given beta-blocker drugs, whereas in America 75 per cent of patients are given them. In America, you are far more likely to have your heart condition diagnosed with an angiogram — a somewhat invasive but definitive test. You are far more likely to have your artery widened with life-saving angioplasty. In Britain not very long ago, a mere 1 per cent of heart attack victims had angioplasty. In America you are much more likely to have heart by-pass surgery. In 1996 British surgeons performed 412 heart by-passes for every million people in the population, less than a fifth of the 2,255 by-passes per million performed in the United States. America has many more lithotripsy units for treating kidney stones — 1.5 per million of population compared with 0.2 in Britain. It is true that in America they overdo the diagnostic tests. In one hospital they did a CT head scan on absolutely everybody who came in complaining of a headache. Even some of the doctors began to think this might be over the top when they realised that only in 2 per cent of cases was anything found. But in Britain the problem is the other way round. Having any diagnostic test beyond an X-ray tends to be regarded as a rare, extravagant event, only to be done in cases of obvious, if not desperate, need. Peggy, an American radiologist, came to Britain to meet her English boyfriend’s family. A pall fell over the visit when the boyfriend’s father found blood in his urine. He went to the local NHS hospital. Peggy knew that blood in the urine could mean something worryingly serious or could be utterly minor. A few tests could make things clear: a CT scan or cystoscopy for example. That would be routine in the US. But no such tests were done by the NHS hospital in Welwyn Garden City where the father was a patient. Tests are underperformed in Britain: first, because there is a shortage of equipment and second, because the equipment is underused. Britain has half the CT scanners per million of population that America has (6.5 compared with 13.6). It also has half the MRI scanners (3.9 per million of population versus 8.1). In Britain these machines are generally used during business hours only, regardless of the fact that some are extremely expensive. At the Mayo Clinic in America, by contrast, an MRI scanner is in use around the clock. And if you do get your X-ray scan in Britain, it may well be done with an old machine. Dr Colin Connolly carried out an audit on behalf of the World Health Organisation and found that over half of British X-ray machines were past their recommended safe time limit. Come to that, he found plenty of other machinery out of date, too. More than half of the anaesthetists’ machines needed replacing. Even the majority of operating tables were over 20 years old — double their safe life span. Look at any proper measure of the capacity or success of a medical service and one finds, again and again, that America comes out better. In Britain 36 per cent of patients have to wait more than four months for non-emergency surgery. In the US a mere 5 per cent do. While in Britain the government celebrates if the waiting times get a bit lower, in America they don’t do waiting. There are more American doctors per patient so, not surprisingly, patients have more time with their doctors. American patients also get to see specialists as a matter of routine whereas in Britain 40 per cent of cancer patients, for example, don’t see a cancer consultant. There are shortages of specialists in many areas of medicine in Britain. The father of Peggy’s boyfriend had asthma that was getting worse. In America he would have been seen by an asthma specialist while in hospital. They would have thought it convenient to do any necessary tests while he was readily available. Not in Britain. The father lay in his hospital bed with breathing difficulties but still did not see a specialist. He was told the wait would be six weeks. Peggy was surprised at how ‘accepting’ her boyfriend’s family was. She didn’t say too much because she did not want to come across as a pushy, arrogant American but she was thinking that ‘in America we’d go nuts if we were told we would have to wait six weeks to see a specialist. Expectations are so much higher.’ Shortly afterwards, her boyfriend’s father was discharged from hospital. Back home, before his appointment with a consultant came up, he died of an asthma attack. ‘Ah yes,’ comes the knowing response, ‘but what about the poor? The rich might get great care in America, but the good thing about the NHS is that everyone gets treated equally. The care is, in the hallowed phrase, “free at the point of delivery”.’ Before going into any detail, let us remember one thing: all those figures at the start about death rates from various forms of cancer were not just for the rich. They were for the whole population, poor included. That said, yes, it is true that American healthcare is expensive. It is true, too, that the financial burden on people is awesomely unequal; but not in the way you might expect. The seriously poor do not get the worst of it. They get treated for free. They get Medicaid, the national subsidy for healthcare for the poor. Their treatment is paid for by the state and subsidised by the hospital, or rather its other patients and — if it is a for-profit hospital — the shareholders. The poor might not get showered with as many diagnostic tests as those with full insurance, but they get treated and without the delays that are normal in Britain. No, the people who get the worst of the cost of the American healthcare system are not the poor. They are not the rich either, of course. Come to that, they are not the old, who are covered by Medicare, another government programme. And they are not the majority of people who are in jobs and have company health insurance. The ones who face major problems are somewhere between middle-income and poor. They are the ones who are not earning enough to take out an insurance policy, or not one with a high limit on medical expenditure. So if they come down with an illness which requires a long — and therefore ruinously expensive — stay in hospital, their insurance may run out and they may have to sell their homes or even go bankrupt. Those who are temporarily unemployed, between jobs, are similarly vulnerable. The numbers are not large in relation to the whole population. We are talking about a minority of the American population — figures of 35–45 million are mentioned — which is not insured and which is not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Of that minority only a small proportion will need fairly long-term hospital treatment. But financial disaster can happen and sometimes does. People lose their homes, their savings, everything. Half the bankruptcies in America are people who had previously been ill. In Britain the system might kill you. In America the system will keep you alive but might bankrupt you. So there is no doubt that the American system is lousy in certain ways. Actually it is lousy in lots of ways. The insurance policies that cover most people are extremely expensive. They can cost as much as $8,000 a year. Part of the problem is that each state dictates what must be in such policies, thus raising the cost and reducing the competition among providers. A young man can be obliged to pay for a policy which insures him against getting pregnant. State interference means that people cannot easily get the kind of insurance they would really like and which could lead to the most economical healthcare. That could be insurance with a large ‘excess’ — offering coverage against real disasters but not against regular bills for ordinary visits to a doctor. The tax rules in America are also highly favourable to insurance provided through a company, but offer little of the same advantages to anyone taking out insurance personally. That gives rise to the ‘between jobs’ period of risk of falling ill. There is much that is wrong with American healthcare. The inflated cost is boosted by restricted entry into the medical profession. It has been pushed up by the courts which have given crippling damages for medical negligence. The doctors have to insure themselves against such damages and so the insurance premiums they pay are huge. Doctors can only pay these by charging high fees. The risk of being sued is also an important reason why American doctors would rather give you too many tests than too few. Let’s face it, the American system is rotten. It is not even a system. It is a hotch-potch. Most hospital provision is by not-for-profit, private hospitals. But the biggest buyer of medical care is the US government. Through Medicaid (for the poor) and Medicare (for the old) and other schemes, the government pays for 45 per cent of all healthcare. (The British assumption that American healthcare consists of an unfettered free market could not be more wrong.) Most British people do not realise that the non-private hospitals in America are not run by the federal government. They are local government hospitals. The San Francisco General is run by the City of San Francisco. And another unexpected thing for Brits is that even in such local government hospitals treatment is not free to those who can afford it. (Incidentally, all sorts of American hospitals — especially the not-for-profit ones — receive large sums of cash from charitable benefactors.) And if you think all the above is confusing, that is hardly even the beginning of the bewildering diversity and contradictions of American healthcare. It is a muddle. The British system was a muddle, too, until Aneurin Bevan came along in 1945. As minister of health, he set about unmuddling it. We, too, used to have local government (‘municipal’) hospitals until he took them over. He took over the charitable hospitals too, like St Mary’s and Moorfields and many other famous ones. He made it not confusing at all. What could be simpler than the central government being in charge of everything? Over time, the government put itself in charge of all the doctors, too. So all was made simple and clear. But the curious thing is that the new, improved, simple state system of Britain does not work as well as the American muddle. You have a better chance of living to see another day in the American mishmash non-system with its sweet pills of charity, its dose of municipal care and large injection of rampant capitalist supply (even despite the blanket of over-regulation) than in the British system where the state does everything. It is not that America is good at running healthcare. It is just that British state-run healthcare is so amazingly, achingly, miserably and mortally incompetent. James Bartholomew’s book, The Welfare State We’re In is published by Politico’s (£18.99).

Public Comments

1. no thanks. i don't have time to read that. shorten it next time.
2. No ones interested
3. isnt this just another example of you being brain washed by the media!! u know-- even if you have such great medical care-- dont you think your country is so greedy that it refuses to help poorer countries, and charges them an arm and a leg instead of helping their fellow man? the cost of medication may not be much for you but people are dying of diseases that can be cured or the effects reduced by medication which is not given to third world countries-- by medication that costs the big drug companies to create them like a small percent of a penny, AAARRRGGGHHHHH
4. That is why Europe has less infant mortality and a longer life expectancy. Your quotes are only about people who have medical care in the US. Many, if not soon most do not have adequate care. They pay more per person, even including those persons who have NO care. In England people have a long wait, In the 'States rich people do not have to wait, but most people still have to go through their Insurance red tape, and a good friend died last year because her insurance company had her diagnosed as having arthritis instead of bone cancer because a cancer diagnosis would cost them more money. (it was deliberate) And then there are folk like myself who don't wait in line as I cannot even GET in line. And because of a system that throws off of the system those who need medical care the most, their stats for the rest look real good. Worse, those most at risk also can't get a job because the employer would not be able to afford the insurance, so hires the younger healthier worker. In the US you still don't choose your insurance, your employer does, and worse might change it every year, based on the best price (for him) forcing you to find new doctors or medicines not covered in the new plan. The waste fraud and abuse is many times that of Government because there is no transparency so only the reporting is reduced. Arbitrary bureaucrats still override doctors' decisions and refuse treatment to increase profits, with bonuses for worse care up and down the line. Doctors often have to hire extra staff just to argue with the insurance companies, just as insurance companies hire extra staff to fight with the doctors. Senior Government officials rarely make more than a few hundred thousand dollars a year. When "private" the senior management makes hundreds of millions of dollars. England appears to have the worst system in Europe, but it is still miles ahead of the American system. Medical something always beats nothing, especially when it costs less. Your long spiel is a fraud.
5. You should do your homework before you write such a long boring diatribe. Actually America has officially the worst medical system of 17 developed nations according to a study done by the commonwealth club, Britain is the second worst: http://trusted.md/blog/hippocrates/2005/11/09/system_failure_us_is_officially_the_worst Also the American Medical system is the leading cause of death is America, beating heart disease and cancer: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/10/29/medical_system_is_leading_cause_of_death_and_injury_in_us.htm Good luck with your ignorant book
6. Whats ya point
7. Ok i read it. Your health system is better but you pay alot for it, and I think its unsustainable the amount you pay. Problem is that more remedies/fixes are made to help with illnesses (hip replacements ect - which weren't around 30 years ago).... and they cost the NHS thousands and thousands more for each patient. Not just hip replacements but hundreds of new treatments for illnesses which couldn't be treated before... but which are expensive to treat. I've got private medical insurance and I live in the UK - but I also trust the NHS.... i will use my private if NHS can't treat me adequately. NHS would be better if all the tax money used for the NHS were passed to about 5 competing... trust type/5% max annual profit/private companies. Cut out all the wasteful government tiers of middle managers.
8. Well apart from the fact that half of your stats are wrong an you can't compare per head because you have four times the population of the U.K., so it does not correlate. How much contradiction is there in your cut an pasted argument??? you pretty much cancel out your own argument then start it all over again. The biggest difference, the one that you outline right at the beginning is the only one that matters at the moment. You go for your credit cards (and Deny anyone who don't have one) we treat those in need. Neither system is great to be honest, but its largely down to the number of consultants in the U.K. an the way the system hurts itself that is the problem. But seeing as its 4 in the morning here I can't be arsssed to explain anymore. All the best.
9. Was that a question or a lecture?
10. All true and even though the post is so long it falls far short of the whole truth. Unfortuantely people are going to skim this and see it as saying "America is better" or "Brittan better" whereas i don't belive that's the point at all. To me it seems that each could take wonderful lessons from the other. America's healthcare system has been teetering on the edge for years now. It won't be long before our system implodes and all hell breaks loose. The worst problem with that is when that happens...it will grossly affect large portions of the civilized world. Not just America. Here in America we are bombarded by healthcare topics daily. Consumers are much more savvy then they used to be, and as a populace we know much more about our own health then ever before. We love this topic and study it endlessly. Why do people in european contries tend to live longer? How does a glass of wine a day play in their health? whats the effect of eating rice on a daily basis? In America we constantly look at other contries and find these questions and, Americans are all to willing to throw millions of dollars at them to get the answers. I'd like to see Japans healthcare factored into this debate. Another counrty that loves it's technology and more than willing to throw money at testing and equipment. How much Yen is spent every year on MRI's? what are the cancer figures for the Japanese? Americans are not greedy. Capatalists are greedy. Americans send millions of vials of medicine to 3rd world countries every year. Americans spent millions and millions of dollars on tsunami relief. (private citizens and our government) Capatalist drug companies make every penny they can on the worlds illnesses. They also spend billions every year researching the next way to save our lives. We could all do more to help the world we live in. We could certainly stand against our neighbors who abuse our healthcare systems driving costs even higher. I don't know who has the best healthcare system in the world. I do know the best doctors are the ones who not only study medicine in their home country but also study abroad.
11. as an american i am proud to say that we have great medical care. the ones you hear complain are the few noisy ones, not the majority. i am glad someone has noticed we are not the bad guys our liberal media and politicians try to shove down everyones throat. you really do not hear what the silent majority think. and the loud politicians, they have the best of everything. servants, homes, big gas guzzling cars and jets (not that i believe that global warming is man made), and the advocate the "do as i say not as i do model." this was a great piece! i read the spectator all the time. ps, who do you think pays or all the illegals who come here and give birth and then takes care of their families? WE DO, with free medical called medicade/medical, welfare payemtns and food stamps. god bless america!
12. Keep dreaming,you are probably rich,that's why you have good doctors.What about working class?aren't they americans?and the poor?
13. I agree. The problem in the US is raising insurance premiums, not the quality of healthcare. Why do they go up? Malpractice premiums for doctors, and our paranoid reaction to every minor symptom. We are lawsuit happy country. You want to lower malpractice premiums, tort reform, where loser pays. The other problem is a social problem, and an ethical problem. We are a country of hypochondriacs, and doctors are willing to oblige, prescribing Ritalin for anyone who claims to have a child with ADD, or Prozac for anyone who claims to have the blues. Don't get me wrong, sometimes people need these medicines, but they are over prescribed. But the cancer survivor rates are probably correct. http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=MURDOCK-08-24-06 The reason is simple, quicker treatment. The reason for quicker treatment is also simple, competition, and less bureaucracy. I don't think the solution is Universal Healthcare. Most people hate HMO's. Imagine the US government running the world's largest HMO. And for the statement that we have a bigger population, so the numbers are skewed for "head count", notice the statistics are percentages... Doesn't matter if it’s 50 out of 100, 50 million out of 100 million. 50% is 50%. Grade school math. No, I think the best solution is to encourage competition, so healthcare providers have to provide better treatment and lower costs, not take the competition away. The more the government gets involved the more screwed up it gets. And for God's sake, people, if you have a sniffle, stop soaking up doctors' time, and raising insurance premiums. Have a bowl of soup and get over it.
14. The main difference between the UK NHS and American Medicare is that here in UK we do not have to pay anything for "at point of need care". What we get in UK is quite good for the small amount it costs each person by way of National Insurance Contributions. A UK citizen can opt for private medicate such as BUPA etc if they so wish, but must bear most of the cost themselves. The NHS is not and has never been in the business of procuring expensive procedures and applying them to patients. The method is for a wide range of basic health-care and advice and not really very much about saving life for it's own sake. The original concept of the NHS was to keep 'breadwinners' at work and not to be fussing around with whether or not a woman would be able to have children or that someone aged 60+ was having a heart attack. More than half Americans have no medical insurance. Therefore, no matter how good the USA medical companies may be, most Americans simply cannot afford to take advantage of what may be on offer. Here in UK because we have a National Health Service and a Welfare State - the worry is taken out of the equation. Hospital infections such as MRSA are easy to deal with. The problem is that the 'private cleaning companies' who are employed to keep NHS hospitals clean, are only interested in 'profit' and not particularly interested in getting on top of a serious problem. Where do most of the infections in our NHS hospitals come from? Put simply, they are 'walked in' on the feet of visitors and patients alike. A major source of infections is computer keyboards. The PC keyboard carries more germs than a lavatory seat. Doctors working in A&E [I have witnessed this, by the way], wear disposible latex gloves. The doc goes to the PC and types something into a file or at any rate, uses the keyboard. The same doctor then touches a patient while still wearing the same latex gloves. And so it goes.
15. Your question is so long some people have died trying to get to the end of it. ! Its not really a question anyway.Its just a book.
16. A heck of a lot of people in Uncle Sam`s country do not get healthcare, they can`t afford it. That does not happen in the UK, everyone gets healthcare. You want to make your mind up about what you really mean... Some of your stupid posts you are deriding the UK Armed Forces. Then you say they are Europes best. I suggest you go back to the Asylum and inform them that you are not ready to be released back into the real world. Ohh, and don`t forget to check that your insurance is paid up. Or you will join the thousands of yanks who can`t afford healthcare and are left to suffer.