Name: Anonymous 2007-09-19 20:46 ID:CY9rz6ov
In the United States, we’re used to speedy service; it’s hardly surprising that in a public-opinion survey, we would complain about any wait at all. But waiting lists like those in Britain and Canada would be a national scandal here. We simply wouldn’t tolerate it.
What about access to the latest treatments? In government-managed systems, bureaucrats and politicians decide which surgeries and new medicines will be available. In Britain, two new drugs for kidney cancer are being denied to cancer sufferers because they’re too expensive, according to news reports.
The Canadian government refuses to buy drugs until they’ve been on the market for years. From 1997 to 1999, 100 drugs were introduced in America; only 43 of them became available in Canada.
In the interest of national budgets, state-administered health systems have an incentive to put saving money before saving lives. Each year, shortages of funds, personnel and facilities force the British system to cancel as many as 100, 000 operations.
In the United States, the survival rate is 90 percent for patients diagnosed with Stage I colon cancer; in Britain, it’s 70 percent. For American women diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer, 97 percent are alive after five years; in Britain, it’s 78 percent. When adjusted for age, U.S. cancer deaths have fallen 1 percent per year since 1991.