"We have the best healthcare system in the world!"

[Fountain79]

I like to listen to talk radio..I know...I know...I am a glutten for punishment or at the very least higher blood pressure. Does anyone know where one can find statistics to refute the conservative mantra that our system is the best in the world?

[SergeyDovlatov]

1. if you have money, it is the best

no wonder that foreign big shots travel to US to get a surgery at Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute, as an example.

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/heartcenter/

[midnight]

10. Yes we do have great medicine here, but access is not

great.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Here's one:

47 Million people don't have health insurance, which means that unless it is an extreme emergency, they cannot afford health care.

If this is the best healthcare system in the world, why is it, for so many people, just like having no healthcare system at all?

[havocmom]

5. And doctors are leaving the practice of medicine because of insurance bean counters

who won't pay a fair charge for services rendered.

[avrdream]

18. One principal reason why I am practicing in Oz today.

That, and the lack of concern from the current administration.

This doctor, for one, got sick of it.

[benddem]

3. bleah!

it isn't even the best if you have money. On any measure the US is far behind other countries. Even a rich person can get a hospital acquired infection and suffer the results.

[Avalux]

4. A study about children's healthcare from Johns Hopkins

https://hopkinsnet.jhu.edu/servlet/page?_pageid=1701&_dad=portal30p&_schema=PORTAL30P

"The health of U.S. children is worse in virtually all categories when compared to children in other industrialized countries, according to new research from a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher."

[kenny blankenship]

6. You get France on your radio?

What channel?

[Reverend_Smitty]

7. We have fantastic doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc...

but it doesn't make a difference if you can't afford insurance or your insurance refuses to pay for your treatment

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05/health_numbers.html

[Selatius]

8. World Health Organization has a report out listing France as the best in the world with health care.

The US ranks 37th, behind Costa Rica. Cuba ranks 39th despite the crippling American economic embargo.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Five measures by which to measure included responsiveness, fairness of financial contribution, overall level of health, distribution of health in the populations, and distribution of financing.

[Double T]

9. Like EVERYTHING else we're told that isn't TRUE...............

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-healthcare.htm

AND

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

[Vincardog]

11. Why aren't The UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan or anyone else throwing over their Universal

system in favor of a For Profit system like OURS?

[Double T]

16. The civilized countries that you mentioned have a social conscience..........

and responsibility, unlike OURS.

[Vincardog]

27. Don't you think that is the answer too the OP?

[focusfan]

23. Because theirs work ours doesn`t

Anyone with half a brain can see that

[cgrindley]

12. Depends how one defines the word "best"

eg "by best I mean most mediocre among civilized nations"

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. In Sicko, Michael Moore shows our ranking as 37th.

If you wanna' get sick, watch Sicko. We're are so fucked.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. Here's a nice debunking of the "Canadians come to the U.S. for healthcare" myth

In terms of hospitals along the border offering advanced treatments or special diagnostic technology (i.e. CT scans and MRIs), about 640 Canadians were seen, along with 270 for procedures like cataract surgery. They compare this to about 375,000 and 44,000 similar procedures in the region of Quebec alone during the same period. If you divide the total number of Canadians seeking those treatments in the US, divided by the number in Quebec alone that's about 0.09%. Not even a tenth of a percent.

But the most striking stats come from the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS). From the article:

Only 90 of 18,000 respondents to the 1996 Canadian NPHS indicated that they had received care in the United States during the previous twelve months, and only twenty had indicated that they had gone to the United States expressly for the purpose of getting that care.

Only 20 of 18,000 sought care in the United States. I can't believe how many people are coming over here! Their system but be truly awful.

more...http://healthypolicy.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/canada_health_c.html

[JTFrog]

26. Canadians make sure

to buy extra insurance if they are coming to the U.S. (those that can afford it) They are terrified of getting stuck in our medical system.

[Wisconsin Larry]

15. Three starting points follow. The bottom line is that the superiority of the US Healthcare system

is another myth perpetuated by the corporate media based Repug propaganda machine. Actually, compared to the rest of the developed world, the US pays the most for health care and has the worst performance.
The upcoming debate in the 2008 elections will most likely not address any of the root causes for this.

The World Health Organization 2000 Report is a good start. From the press release,

"WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ASSESSES THE WORLD'S HEALTH SYSTEMS

The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world’s health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.

The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance.

The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy."

The full report can be found at http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/index.html

Debunking the cause of high health care costs can be found at the John Hopkins site
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2005/anderson_healthspending.html

For example,
“It is commonly believed that waiting lists in other countries and malpractice litigation in the United States are major reasons why the United States spends so much more on health care than other countries. We found that they only explain a small part of the difference,” said Gerard Anderson, PhD, lead author of the study and a professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management."

And most recently, the 2007 Commonwealth Fund report "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care" http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/Davis_mirrormirrorinternationalpdate_1027.pdf?section=4039

"The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show the United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. This report, which includes information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries' health systems, confirms the patient survey findings discussed in previous editions of Mirror, Mirror. It also includes information on health care outcomes that were featured in the U.S. health system scorecard issued by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Among the six nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity. The 2007 edition includes data from the six countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care."

[ima_sinnic]

17. WHAT "healthcare system"?

as a self-employed 61-year-old female with a certain amount of debt, I have very little money "left over" for health care. All I can do is eat as well as I can, try to exercise regularly, and hope I don't come down with any illnesses. At some point, like an old car, I will break down--then what?

[Skittles]

20. I hear you ima

while I have health insurance now, my job is unstable and I do forsee a time when I will probably not have it - it's scary and it is not right

[Skittles]

19. indeed

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/bob-herbert-when-dollars-trump.html

[and-justice-for-all]

21. It does not rank well at all.....

Its pretty crappy really. If it was universal, like say CUBA, it would be be great..Lil' ol Cuba cares more about it citizens health then the this so-called super power.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. We are ranked 37th by the World Health Org. Here's an article from CBS News.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/06/20/world/main207853.shtml

[Vinca]

24. Try the CIA World Fact Book for infant mortality statistics,

longevity, etc. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

We might actually have the best healthcare in the world, it's just not possible for millions of us to access it because we can't afford the price tag.

[MiniMe]

25. *Gasp* But medicine is science based. And *co is trying to destroy science

[triguy46]

28. Many rankings of the quality of medicine in the US...

show us lagging many european nations, even Costa Rica. In addition, a greater issue is that with the quality of care we do provide we are an extremely unhealthy nation. Obama caught flack over his statements on obesity, but it could very well be our #1 health problem.