Posted on 01/08/2008 8:38:21 AM PST by mngran2
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 ... 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.
...
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Tell that to the 15,000 French elderly who died in the heat wave a few years back.
Then why do people come here for health care and not France?
Princess Diana might have something to say about their emergency procedures, too.
I’d say Reuters health care raters are just about as reliable as their middle east faux-tographers
You know, we don't have those in the US of A...
“London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care”
Yep - a completely OBJECTIVE standard. Like that Lancet study of Iraq War deaths.
Who writes up this crap and who believes this crap?
Here is the key to this BS article. Universal health care. The fact the no one is denied medical care is irrelevant. We have the best health care in the world and everyone knows it. And didn’t we hear the Princess Diana would have survived her accident had she been in America?
Hmmm. Wonder how overall longevity compares?
Yeah, running away will certainly prevent deaths.
We don’t have hundreds of cars torched every night like France, do we?
My cousin didn’t actually go to France for health care but he’s stayed there for it. He went to play jazz music and while there was diagnosed with a severe degenerative heart problem. He could never get insurance in the U.S. because this condition is expensive to treat and will certainly kill him early. And couldn’t afford to pay for treatment here. In Paris he’s seen to by one of the top specialists in the world. Free (of course he pays taxes).
People come to the U.S. because we do indeed have some VERY good health care and because if you have the cash, you can get treated.
"Hold muh champagne!" just isn't a cultural phenomenon over there. ;)
““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.”
Everyone has access to health care in the US, whether you can pay for it or not.
What a joke.
The best way to combat preventable deaths is to stay away from doctors and hospitals. Mistakes made in hospitals cause over 100,000 deaths a year, and this doesn’t count the thousands who die from infections picked up while in the hospital. Just ask Glen Beck about that.
We have only just begun the new, dedicated campaign by the left and the MSM. The new vogue in the MSM is to point out how the US is diminishing in status compared to the rest of the world. The value of the dollar, the emergence of China, the living standards of the British, health of the French, and on and on. Watch for this more and more running up to the 2008 election. Watch for the MSM to now begin to cast Obama as the agent of hope for a declining US.
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