Health Problems Health Care Can't fix

[Skull Pilot]

Health Problems Health Care Can’t Fix - WSJ.com

Maybe President Obama has watched too much "Sicko" because he sure likes to reiterate Michael Moore's bromides. In his joint address of Congress, he said: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it."

But as Mr. Obama is fond of saying, that simply is not true.

While Americans may have a lower life expectancy than other affluent countries, the disparity is mainly due to Americans' poor personal health-care practices -- not to any flaw in health-care treatment. "The U.S. actually does a pretty good job of identifying and treating the major diseases. The international comparisons don't show we're in dire straits," says University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Samuel Preston, a researcher who has studied the matter.

The real problem, it turns out, is that Americans are accident-prone, health unconscious slobs. Until the mid-1980s, the U.S. had the highest per capita cigarette consumption in the developed world, and the U.S.'s obesity rate today is more than twice that of Canada and ten times that of Japan. These aren't problems of the health care system (i.e. in the diagnosis and treatment of disease). These are problems of behavior. Adjust that data for the higher U.S. incidence of homicide and obesity, and Americans actually have the highest life expectancy in the developed world.

This is the kind of inconvenient truth that the somewhat lax Mr. Moore is accustomed to overlooking. A svelte gym rat like Mr. Obama should know better

 

[Old Rocks]

Costa Rica is an affluent country? Canada had exactly the same stats as we did 30 years ago. They instituted a Universal Health Care plan, and now their stats are much better than ours in almost every aspect of health. Including a lead of over three years in longevity.

And of course, you would not expect the Wall Street Journal to point out that for profit Health Care companies might be one of the factors in our dismal health statistics.

 

[dilloduck]

Costa Rica is an affluent country? Canada had exactly the same stats as we did 30 years ago. They instituted a Universal Health Care plan, and now their stats are much better than ours in almost every aspect of health. Including a lead of over three years in longevity.

And of course, you would not expect the Wall Street Journal to point out that for profit Health Care companies might be one of the factors in our dismal health statistics.

Stats are mathematical lies.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Costa Rica is an affluent country? Canada had exactly the same stats as we did 30 years ago. They instituted a Universal Health Care plan, and now their stats are much better than ours in almost every aspect of health. Including a lead of over three years in longevity.

And of course, you would not expect the Wall Street Journal to point out that for profit Health Care companies might be one of the factors in our dismal health statistics.

except cancer survival rates you mean.

again the point here is that our ability to diagnose and treat disease is certainly not worse then the rest of the world.