An Eye-Opening Adventure in UK Socialized Medicine (the big lie that is the US health care system)

[stockholmer]

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/07/12/an-eye-opening-adventure-in-socialized-medicine/

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Only one: Where could I get the forms and receipts that I would need to file with my insurance company back home? ”The eyedrops will cost you about ten pounds,” the doctor replied, “but there’s no cost for this examination.” When I gazed at him with disbelief, he added, as if patiently explaining something elemental to a child, “This is the National Health Service — it’s free.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Surely a freeloading American had to pay up front? The admitting nurse, however, had no forms to offer me. My prescription was filled at the pharmacy within five minutes by a Muslim woman in a colorful headscarf who also directed me to a lavatory where I could put the first round of drops in my eyes. I immediately felt better as the placebogenic effects of feeling well taken care of took hold. In a couple of hours, all of my symptoms were gone for good, though of course I continued taking the drops until the bottle ran out, as directed by the doctor.

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I’m aware that my little adventure in socialized medicine is no more than a trivial anecdote — one tourist’s experience with a minor affliction that was easily dealt with. I expect that many Londoners could furnish horror stories about their ordeals in the NHS. One renowned health-care expert who grew up in England recently explained the difference between British and American medicine to me by saying that if he was very rich and had cancer, he would rather live in the U.S. But if he was poor and had cancer, he’d rather live in the U.K. and be guaranteed at least B-minus care. That’s the sort of nuance that gets lost when the framing of public debate on health care is socialized medicine versus free-market capitalism, the feds vs. private insurers, or the GOP vs. “Obamacare” — and when we allow the tone of that crucial national debate to be set by ill-informed voters yelling Fox News talking points in staged riots at townhall meetings.

Shortly after arriving back home, I read that GOP presidential front-runner Michele Bachmann — who brags of being a successful small-business owner http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/michele-bachmann-exclusive-pray-gay-candidates-clinic/story?id=14048691 because her fey “therapist” husband, boasting a degree from a defunct diploma mill http://www.signorile.com/2011/07/what-kind-of-doctor-is-marcus-bachmann.html , runs a network of clinics that take government funds to indulge evangelical fantasies of homosexuality being “curable” with enough prayer and self-loathing http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/07/09/Hidden_Camera_Sting_Finds_Reparative_Therapy_at_Bachmann_s_Clinics/ — had declared that President Obama must have been “not in his right mind” to pass the Affordable Care Act, which she has vowed to repeal if elected president. The GOP has been sounding the alarm about “socialist medicine” since 1961, when Ronald Reagan preached http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs against the soul-sapping dangers of Medicare as a threat to American liberty.

The Koch brothers’ astroturfed Tea Party crusade against health reform http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all can take the lion’s share of the credit for putting the GOP in control of the House in the mid-term elections, resulting in one of the most deadlocked, fractious, showboating http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-dim-idea-on-light-bulb-standards/2011/07/11/gIQAWBXf9H_story.html , anti-labor, anti-middle class, and casually bigoted Congresses in history. With help from a president who often seems more eager to demonstrate his “post-partisan” reasonableness than to defend the lives of the American http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-08-gay-in-military_N.htm people against the ravenous appetites of corporations and lobbyists, the safety and security of everyone but the very rich — in the form of modest entitlements like Social Security and Medicaid http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2011-07-09-4252307166_x.htm — is headed for the chopping block.



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related

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/07/12/survey-99-5-of-hospitals-report-drug-shortages/

Survey: 99.5% of US Hospitals Report Drug Shortages

Two new surveys give a snapshot of how bad the drug-shortage problem has become.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices has called the recent rash of shortages http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/08/04/institute-for-safe-medication-practices-drug-shortages-unprecedented/ “unprecedented.” Today, the American Hospital Association and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists reported what their members are saying. (The WSJ wrote about this issue earlier this year. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704680604576110613604195324.html )

The AHA says http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/07/12/survey-99-5-of-hospitals-report-drug-shortages/www.aha.org/drugshortage that 99.5% of the 820 community hospitals that responded to the group’s June survey reported experiencing at least one drug shortage in the past six months. A full 44% reported shortages of 21 or more different drugs. All treatment categories were affected, hospitals said, with 80% or more respondents experiencing shortages of surgery/anesthesia, emergency care, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal/nutrition, pain or infectious disease drugs. And 66% of hospitals reported shortages of cancer drugs http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/11/23/cancer-drugs-affected-by-ongoing-shortages/ . Some 47% of hospitals reported experiencing a shortage of at least one drug on a daily basis.

Shortages occur for a variety of reasons, including the unavailability of raw ingredients, FDA enforcement actions that halt production, voluntary recalls, poor inventory management, changed product formulations and even shortage rumors, which can prompt hoarding, according to the ISMP. (Indeed, 85% of the hospitals surveyed by the AHA reported that they’ve purchased “excess inventory” of certain drugs to be sure they’re not caught short-handed.)

In addition, most hospitals in the AHA survey say they’ve implemented rationing or restrictions for certain drugs and that as a result of shortages, drug costs have risen. A separate analysis released in March estimated shortages were costing hospitals at least $200 million annually. The consequences for patients may include delayed treatment, receiving a less effective drug or not getting a recommended treatment, though most hospitals reported those things happened “rarely,” the AHA says. The ISMP reported last September on near misses and deaths resulting from drug shortages.


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[StarsInHerHair]

1. kickety kick

[Kennah]

2. Now, how to get a stake in this vampire

"One renowned health-care expert who grew up in England recently explained the difference between British and American medicine to me by saying that if he was very rich and had cancer, he would rather live in the U.S. But if he was poor and had cancer, he'd rather live in the U.K. and be guaranteed at least B-minus care."

Cancer survival rates, so it is claimed, are so much better in the U.S., and that's just some of the blather I often hear; however, I'd love to known what's the correlation between wealth and cancer survival, because I damned sure have an idea that I'd love to see proved with data.

[stockholmer]

3. wealth, country of residence, and cancer survival rates

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_dea_fro_can-health-death-from-cancer

Health Statistics > Death from cancer (most recent) by country

Sweden
268.2 deaths per 100,000 people

USA
321.9 deaths per 100,000 people

France
286.1 deaths per 100,000 people

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Sweden overall health stats

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/sw-sweden/hea-health

USA overall health stats

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us-united-states/hea-health

France overall health stats

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/fr-france/hea-health



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http://www.tressugar.com/Cancer-Survival-Rates-Differ-Based-Countrys-Wealth-1792809?page=0%2C1

Wealthy countries where patients have access to diagnostic equipment have higher cancer survival rates than their poorer counterparts. Using data from over two million cancer patients worldwide (from the 1990s), the first major study to compare global cancer survival rates found that the US, Australia, Canada, France, and Japan had the highest five-year survival rate. Algeria had the worst. The UK did not report well compared to other Western European countries although its survival rate has risen this decade.

The US had the highest five-year survival rate for breast cancer (89 percent) and prostate cancer (91.9 percent), compared to the UK 69.7 percent and 51.1 percent respectively. The UK had regional disparity, evidence that access to services matters. To find out what's behind the phenomenon, read more.

Survival rates were clearly tied to how much the countries spent on health. The US spent 13 percent of its GDP, while Europe spent about 10 percent. Algeria spent 4 percent. The tie between money and health played out domestically as well. White Americans were 14 percent more likely than other groups to survive cancer.

Despite this extensive study, one Florida official offered some conflicting anecdotal evidence. Florida's secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration said: "Just because you're poor doesn't mean you're unhealthy; it just means you have a lot more time to go running."


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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7510121.stm

There is a huge variation in cancer survival rates across the world, a global study shows.

The US, Australia, Canada, France and Japan had the highest five-year survival rates, while Algeria had the worst, Lancet Oncology reported.

The UK fared pretty poorly, trailing most of its western European neighbours - although the data is from the 1990s since when survival rates have risen.

Spending on health care was a major factor, the study of 31 countries said.

Researchers said higher spending often meant quicker access to tests and treatment.


The report is the first major study to compare cancer survival across five continents and has highlighted the stark differences in survival between poor and wealthy countries.


The research was carried out by more than 100 scientists across the world led by Professor Michel Coleman, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

It involved analysing data on more than two million cancer patients who were diagnosed and treated during the 1990s.

The study showed the US had the highest five-year survival rates for breast cancer at 83.9% and prostate cancer at 91.9%.

Japan came out best for male colon and rectal cancers, at 63% and 58.2% respectively, while France fared best for women with those cancers at 60.1% and 63.9%.

The UK had 69.7% survival for breast cancer, just above 40% for colon and rectal cancer for both men and women and 51.1% for prostate cancer.

There were also large regional variations within the UK, which were linked to differences in access to care and ability of patients to navigate the local health services. Both are directly linked to deprivation.

A Department of Health spokesman said the report covered patients diagnosed between 1990 and 1994.

"Since that time, cancer survival rates in England have been steadily improving for but we accept that there is further work to do to reduce the gap between us and the rest of northern and western Europe and America."

Algeria, the only African country involved, came bottom in all types of cancer.

Survival

It meant an American man was four times more likely to survive prostate cancer than an Algerian, while a Japanese man was six times more likely to survive colon cancer.

Poland, Slovenia, Brazil and Estonia had survival rates half as good as the best performers.

The results closely mirrored the amount each country was spending on health during the period.

While the US led the way with more than 13% of gross domestic product spent on health, Canada, Australia and the best-performing European nations were all spending about 9% to 10%.

The UK was spending just over 7% but that figure has now been increased following record rises in the NHS budget to bring it much closer to the likes of France and Germany.

Algeria was spending around 4%.

The importance of money was further illustrated by an ethnic breakdown of outcomes in the US.

White Americans, who are on the whole wealthier and therefore more able to afford the insurance which underpins the US system, were up to 14% more likely than others to survive cancer.

Professor Coleman said some of the differences could be attributed to variations in "access to diagnostic and treatment services".

"This, of course, is associated with the amount of investment in technology such as CT scanners."

Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, added: "The report is the first major study to compare cancer survival across five continents and has highlighted the stark differences in survival between poor and wealthy countries."



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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/big-wealth-gap-among-breast-cancer-survivors-565247.html

Big wealth gap among breast cancer survivors

Women in the north of England are far less likely to survive breast cancer than those living in the wealthy South-east, according to a major new study which exposes a postcode lottery in treatment of the disease.


Women in the north of England are far less likely to survive breast cancer than those living in the wealthy South-east, according to a major new study which exposes a postcode lottery in treatment of the disease.

In the worst areas, just 66 per cent of women will still be alive five years after breast cancer is diagnosed. That rises to 85 per cent where treatment is most effective.

Survival rates are generally lowest in the poorest areas of the country, and one theory is that poorer people may get poorer treatment.

"The potentially explosive question is, do these people receive less effective treatment than rich people?" said Professor Michel Coleman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the study. "We know that women who are treated by specialist surgeons have better outcomes, and we have evidence from Scotland and Yorkshire that poor people tend to see a specialist in their particular disease less often than rich people.''

In the research, reported in the British Journal of Cancer, data on almost 80,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer was examined by health authority area. Of the 78,904 women included, 27,532 died within five years of diagnosis, and the average five-year survival rate was 75 per cent.

"There is evidence of geographical similarities among the northern regions, with the relative survival rates in North-west, Trent and Northern and Yorkshire being on average considerably lower than in London and in the Eastern and South-east regions,'' says the report.

The researchers say that the differences are unlikely to be down to chance or differences in the extent of disease at the time of diagnosis.

"For breast cancer patients, these differentials have been associated with variations in diagnostic investigations both in England and Wales and in Scotland, and with departures from treatment guidelines,'' says the report.

The researchers found that health authorities with higher numbers of lower social class households, or higher unemployment rates, or greater deprivation, had lower breast cancer survival rates.

"It could be that poorer people have immune systems that are not so good as wealthier people, or it could be their nutritional status is not so good," said Professor Coleman. "It could also be that the state of diagnosis is more advanced.


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http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/cancer-rates-and-unjustified-conclusions/

Cancer Rates and Unjustified Conclusions


number of opponents of new health care legislation, most recently our old friend Betsy McCaughey on "The Daily Show," have claimed that cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than in countries with nationalized health care. They conclude from this that the state of general health and health care quality in the U.S. must therefore be higher. Does the U.S. really have a higher cancer survival rate? And what does that mean about our health care system?

It’s certainly the case that we have higher survival rates than the United Kingdom and other countries with nationalized health care. Across the board, the United States boasts a higher five-year relative survival rate than the European average, according to a 2008 study in the British medical journal Lancet. For breast cancer, for instance, the U.S. survival rate was 83.9 percent, the U.K. rate was 69.7, and the average European rate was 73.1.

But survival rates also differ within the United States, between insured and uninsured populations. The American Cancer Society found that the five-year survival rates for colorectal cancer averaged 63 percent for the privately insured but 49 percent for the uninsured. According to the Lancet study, five-year relative survival rates for colorectal cancer were 59.1 percent in the U.S. and 45.3 percent in Europe. Breast cancer survival rates among the uninsured were also similar to Europe – 85 percent survival for those with private insurance, 75 percent for the uninsured, close to the European average. Rates for people on Medicaid were similar to the uninsured.

So universal insurance is as bad as no insurance, right? Not so fast. For one thing, survival rates in Canada, Japan, Australia and Cuba were all comparable to or higher than U.S. survival rates on all types of cancer that the Lancet study examined, except for prostate cancer. Those countries all have some form of government-provided health care coverage. Prostate cancer often doesn’t require treatment, so the aggressive screening common in the U.S. turns up both early cases and cases that would never need intervention. This leads to an inflated survival rate in the U.S., where asymptomatic patients are more likely to be diagnosed.

Furthermore, simply comparing survival rates isn’t necessarily an accurate measure, and it certainly isn’t a simple reflection of health care quality. For one thing, five-year relative survival rates measure how many people diagnosed with cancer are still alive five years later (compared with how many people in that population you’d expect to be alive if they didn’t have cancer). This means that early detection will always increase survival rates, even if it doesn’t improve outcomes (though oncologists do agree that cancer is less deadly if found early). If two people have exactly the same disease progression, the one who’s diagnosed earlier will be more likely to be alive in five years. Thus, countries with more advance screening will have higher survival rates even if they don’t have better post-diagnosis care. Cancer screening is less widespread in European countries, and people without insurance or who are on Medicaid also are less likely to have access to it. The ACS study showed that the uninsured and Medicaid beneficiaries had lower rates of both mammograms and colorectal cancer screening than the insured.

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http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/cancer.htm

CDC cancer stats for the USA


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http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=617550

Cancer Survival Depends on Where You Live

The report was published in the July 17 online edition of The Lancet Oncology.

For the study, called the CONCORD study, Coleman's team collected data on 1.9 million cancer patients in 31 countries. Using cancer registries from each country, the researchers compared the five-year survival rates for breast, colon, rectal and prostate cancer.

The United States has the highest rates of survival for breast and prostate cancers, while Japan has the highest survival rates for colon and rectal cancers among men. France has the highest survival rates for colon and rectal cancer among women, the report found.

In addition, Canada and Australia also have very high survival rates for most cancers. The lowest rate of survival among both men and women was seen in Algeria.

In the United States, the lowest survival rates are in New York City, except for rectal cancer in women, where Wyoming scores worse. The best survival rate for cancer in the United States is in Hawaii, the researchers found.

Idaho also has a high survival rate for rectal cancer, and Seattle has the highest survival rate for prostate cancer.

But, there's a big disparity in cancer survival rates between whites and blacks in the United States, and it favors whites. The differences range from 7 percent for prostate cancer to 14 percent for breast cancer. This disparity is most likely due to differences in the stage of cancer when it is diagnosed, the researchers said.

There's also a significant difference in cancer survival rates between the United States and Europe, with survival rates 10 percent and 34 percent higher in the United States for breast cancer and prostate cancer, respectively, the study found.

In Europe, France has the highest survival rate for rectal and colon cancers. Sweden has the highest survival rate for breast cancer, and Austria has the highest survival rate for prostate cancer
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018568/

Cancer survival in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the UK, 1995–2007 (the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership): an analysis of population-based cancer registry data

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http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/17/1258.full


Cancer Trends in the United States—A View From Europe

The fifth in the series of Annual Reports to the Nation on the Status of Cancer (1) focuses on the four most common cancers—lung, female breast, colorectal, and prostate—that together account for more than half of both cancer cases and deaths in the United States. These four cancers have similar importance in most of Europe (2). A principal strength of the report is that it provides a wealth of information on the cancer trends in terms of both incidence and mortality. Incidence and mortality data each have their own advantages and disadvantages


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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-21/cancer-survival-rates-in-sweden-canada-surpass-u-k-denmark-in-study.html

Cancer Survival Rates in Sweden, Canada Surpass U.K., Denmark, Study Says


Cancer patients in the U.K. and Denmark are less likely to survive than those living in Australia, Canada, Sweden and Norway because of poorer early diagnosis in the two countries, researchers said.

Survival rates for breast, colorectal, lung and ovarian cancer rose in all six countries whose medical data was analyzed in a study published in The Lancet http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)62231-3/%20abstract medical journal today. The U.K. and Denmark, which saw the biggest increase in breast cancer survival rates, still lagged behind the other nations.

“The improvement is there to see in all countries,” Michel Coleman, the study’s lead author and a professor of epidemiology and vital statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told reporters at a briefing yesterday in London. “Cancer is a very important chronic disease and public health problem. One in three can be expected to be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetimes and one in four will die of it.”

Patients in the U.K. and Denmark are less likely to be diagnosed in the early stages of disease, when treatment is more effective, based on the one-year survival rates in the study, said Mike Richards, national cancer director at the U.K. Department of Health. Between 2005 and 2007, about 30 percent of Britons were alive within one year of being diagnosed with lung tumors, compared with 35 percent in Denmark, 39 percent in Norway, 42 percent in Canada, 43 percent in Australia and 44 percent in Sweden, the study found.

[Agent William]

4. Your story of the NHS is more than an anecdote...it is reality

When patients are put before profit, the result is superior care. There are few horror stories that are related to the universal ('socialist) aspect of the National Health Service. Most complaints relate to technical details of the hospital or a snide comment made by a member of staff. I recently had a series of doctor visits and got blood tests. The price for all this? £5.50, for the bus fare to and from the hospital. Intact one doctor suggested that I get a neurological test (all free at the point of delivery). I opted not to since the small non-voluntary twitches that sent me the hospital in the first place, were most likely coming from stress or poor diet (the advice of another NHS doctor). The attitude of the medical professionals was that they truly cared about my health.

My poor old mother back in the US (a UK citizen, by the way) is forced to pay around ten thousand a year for shitty 'health' care. She may, or may, not see a doctor every month or so. Sometimes she is forced to see the doctors assistant...but she pays as though she is seeing the best doctor in the country. What is ironic is that the doctor assistant is more helpful than the actual doctor.

I had the yell at my dad to finally convince him that the UK service was superior to any pathetic excuse offered in the US. One of my other relatives called me a liar to my face. Americans will never go for universal health coverage for at least another generation. Keep in mind that the NHS only came in to existence after the Second World War with the assistance of the 'socialist' labour government. Prior to the 1940s, the healthcare system in Britain loosely resembled the US system of now where only wealthy received medical treatment. But then again, interwar Brittons only had to pay about two shillings to have the doctor stop by.

Better days will come, but will any of us live to see it is the real question.