interesting healthcare FACTS!

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A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:

U.S. 65%

England 46%

Canada 42%


Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:

U.S. 93%

England 15%

Canada 43%


Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:

U.S. 90%

England 15%

Canada 43%


Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:

U.S. 77%

England 40%

Canada 43%


Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

U.S. 71

England 14

Canada 18


Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":

U.S. 12%

England 2%

Canada 6%


And now for the last statistic:


National Health Insurance?

U.S. NO

England YES

Canada YES

Check this last set of statistics!!

The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is a real-life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages.


T. Roosevelt.................... 38%

Taft.................................. 40%

Wilson ........................... 52%

Harding........................... 49%

Coolidge......................... 48%

Hoover............................ 42%

F. Roosevelt................... 50%

Truman........................... 50%

Eisenhower................ .... 57%

Kennedy......................... 30%

Johnson.......................... 47%

Nixon.............................. 53%

Ford................................ 42%

Carter............................. 32%

Reagan........................... 56%

GH Bush......................... 51%

Clinton .......................... 39%

GW Bush........................ 55%

Obama..................... 8%


This helps to explain the incompetence of this
administration: only 8% of them have ever worked in private business!

That's right! Only eight percent---

How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one? Or about jobs when he has never really had one? And when it's the same for 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers? They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs or as "community organizers." They should have been in an employment line.

 

Yes Indeed!

Thank you Dr Sarbes.

 

How about USA spends twice as much on Health Care per head yet overall have worse health outcomes? No one from England or Canada (or Australia, NZ, France etc. etc.) would want to swap their health system for the U.S. health system.

 

When you say England, do you actually mean this, or do you mean The UK? I suspect that there serious differences in health care delivery in each of the four basic areas of the UK, of which England is only one. Rob (Ex pat UK)

 

Steve

Please be careful with the emphasis on the word FACTS.

I thought your posting was interesting, but didn't quite make sense to me given my experiences in learning about the differences in various health systems around the world. So I thought I would google your 'source' document.

The email/article/blog topic you have quoted from is already being dismissed all over the interweb as a right-wing Republican croc of sh*t designed to undermine the Obama adminstration. Apparently emails containing these dubious 'facts' are criss-crossing your continent now, and you probably got it too.

For a start, there is no such body as the 'United Nations International Health Organisation'. The orginal author has been dismissed as a fraud, and if you dig deeper the 'Investors Business Daily' is the most party-political source of investment advice I have ever laid eyes on.

The truth is out there. But this isn't it.

Never trust what you read on the internet, particularly when it has political fingerprints stamped all over it...not exactly evidenced based medicine.

LL

PS: I am generally a right-leaning person at the best of times, but i just do not get the Republican obsession with the 'evils' of state subsidised medical care. I would not trade our Australian system for any other country in the world - and most importantly most specialist doctors I know still upgrade their Mercedes Benz's every couple of years!

 

this is my take:
Within the UN is the WHO (World Health Organization) that has a data and statistical section called (now) the GHODR (Global Health Observatory Data Repository) which (apparently) was the UNIHO.

The data is available for anyone willing to wade through it.
The part about the presidents you have to verify somewhere else.
I do accept the error (England instead of UK).

There are two sides to the "don't believe everything on the internet" coin. Just because something has been "discounted" doesn't make it "not so"

BTW: Our President is destroying our fine nation. And not very slowly either. I think I read that on the internet somewhere, probably snopes.com! haha

Steve

 

Steve

Without sounding facetious, could I enquire as to your health insurance costs for you and your family in the US?

If you were to be diagnosed with something complex and serious requiring extensive treatment (eg surgery, uncommon drugs, lots of investigations) - eg 3 vessel CABG undertaken by the providers of your choice - how much would your out-of-pocket expenses by as a % of the total bill (lets say $100K for arguments sake)?

In Australia, I (like all taxpayers) have 1.5% of my taxable income taken as a Medicare levy (covers 85% of the 'scheduled fee' for the vast majority of medical investigations, procedures and interventions - which is quite often the fee accepted by the provider - but they can choose to charge whatever they like), and I pay about $250 per month for additional private insurance so I can have surgery with my surgeon of choice in the private hospital of my choosing. Generally this means there is never any additional out of pocket expenses (3 babies delivered in private hospitals in the last 7 years and a few overnight stays for tonsillectomies and the like, for example). Medications are treated separately under a different arrangement called the PBS so that the most I would pay on the majority of prescriptions is about $30. Often less. Pensions pay about $7 per script.

Aside from this, all citizens have a further safety net that means once total annual medical expenses exceed about $2000 the government picks up the tab through Medicare.

I have *never*, *ever* heard of an Australian citizen going bankrupt or selling their home to pay their health care costs. If you are unemployed, uninsured and require an elective procedure in a public hospital (eg bunion) you might wait a year or two. Cosmetic procedures will only be done for free is there is a medical necessity (eg breast augmentation post breast Ca). If you have a heart attack and need coronary stenting or bypass you would be seen immediately. No. Cost. At. All.

Yes we taxpayers pick up the tab. But no government in our country - conservative or progressive would change the core arrangments in place. Tinker at the edges is all.

Like the US - providers that do procedures (surgery, radiology) get paid massive incomes, the family doctors and physicians get less. Incomes for these medical providers generally range from several 100,000's to millions. Podiatry here is a different beast, as you know.

Would like to hear your perspective if you have the time.

LL

 

So, are you upset with him for passing the Republican version of health care? Romneycare?

Eric

 

And that stats for
-Health expenditure as a % of GDP?,
-private health insurance portability,
-Risk rated, verse community rated premium settings?
-MRI scanners per population seems a poor indicator verses say number on General Practitioner consults per person per annum.
Oh and regarding the % of patients diagnosed with diabetes receiving treatment within 6 months that is an easy one to get the numbers up high, just have a prohibitively expensive primary care sector and lower socio economic groups with chronic health problems are more prevalent will be less likely to get the initial diagnosis.

as a podiatrist with free market sympathy one thing about Australians health care system for all its faults is that universal access under medicare and community rated private health insurance creates a degree of competitive tension, highlighting areas where one system is more efficient than the other.

 

I live in England. I have previously had private healthcare insurance but even then when I had a diagnosis of very advanced and progressing rapidly pre-cancer I chose to use the NHS as in these sort of situations their treatment is second to none. I am now a third year pod student and cannot afford private healthcare. There was a minor complication from my aforementioned surgery and a previous accident which has left me with untreatable chronic pain. I have to use a variety of medications merely to stay functional - without the NHS I would not be able to afford these. The NHS may not be perfect but it is actually bloody good and I would rather have this than the system in the US.

 

....so if george W had so many captains of industry in his administration how come they £^$&ed up your economy so spectacually ???

 

"so if george W had so many captains of industry in his administration how come they £^$&ed up your economy so spectacually ???"

Well, our economy was doing very very very nicely until it suddenly started to take a turn for the worse the LAST 2 years - which happens to coincide with the democratic majority victory in congress.

Thanks a lot.

My retirement plan was looking pretty damned good until then!


Steve

 

That's really reaching pretty far to blame the Democrats when the sub prime crisis was set to explode by 2006. I guess you could blame the Democrats for not stopping the Republicans from deregulating the banking industry.

Eric