Is our MEDICAL CARE System That Bad?

Central to this entire reform effort has been the supposition that our "health care system" is broken. But the health care system is actually composed of two parts: health insurance and medical care. Most of the rhetoric on point has been aimed against the problems with our health insurance system.

Which begs the question, how is our MEDICAL CARE system doing?

Critics will tell you that our system is NOT the best in the world. They will cite as "proof" the "fact" that life expectancy in the US is lower than that in countries with socialized medicine, such as England and Canada. And on the surface, they have a point. Life expectancy in the US is 75.3 years, lower than the average life expectancy in Canada (77.3 years), France (76.6), or any other Western European nation except Portugal.

However, would you agree that other factors BESIDES medical treatment also affect life expectancy? Of course. And when you factor out deaths from accident and injury, life expectancy in the United States EXCEEDS that of any Western European nation.


And if you want to judge our system on how well we treat those who are sick, then let's do that. Here are some survival rates on various forms of cancer.

Lukemia: 50% (US) - 35% (Europe)
Esophageal carcinoma: 12% (US) - 6% (Europe)
Prostate cancer: 81.2% (US) - 61.7% (France) - 44.3% (UK)

Yes, it's expensive, but a lot of that comes from the fact that we demand high levels of treatment... and we get it.

I recommend you read this piece on health care systems, written from the perspective of a Canadian doctor who for most of his life supported Canada's socialized system of medicine.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

But such initiatives would push the United States further down the path to a government-run system and make things much, much worse. True, government bureaucrats would be able to cut costs—but only by shrinking access to health care, as in Canada, and engendering a Canadian-style nightmare of overflowing emergency rooms and yearlong waits for treatment. America is right to seek a model for delivering good health care at good prices, but we should be looking not to Canada, but close to home—in the other four-fifths or so of our economy. From telecommunications to retail, deregulation and market competition have driven prices down and quality and productivity up. Health care is long overdue for the same prescription.

The US system of medical care is the best in the world... or it WAS until last Sunday. The future isn't so clear...