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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (160870)	7/22/2009 7:54:46 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

That tends to support what I said. the U.S., Japan, and France recorded the highest survival rates among 31 nations for four types of cancer. ..... "Survival in the USA is high on a global scale but varies quite widely among individual states as well as between blacks and whites within the USA," he tells WebMD. ..... The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports. ............ 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. tressugar.com STUDY in a journal, the Lancet Oncology, compares cancer survival rates across five continents for the first time. After adjusting country data, from the 1990s, for differences in both age and death rates in the general population, Americans were found to have the best chance of survival for two of the five cancers that the reasearchers considered: breast cancer in women and prostate cancer. (Cuba had impressive survival rates, but these were probably over-estimated, say researchers). Europe lags behind America, with wide differences in survival rates, ranging from 10% for breast cancer to 34% for prostate cancer. Money appears to be an important factor: America spends a greater proportion of national income on health than the other countries. economist.com Cancer Survival Rates - USA! USA! Take a look at the comparisons on this table: lesjones.com reason.com Interesting comments here: The Wine Commonsewer-Reg US Pat Off \| August 21, 2007, 1:14pm \| # I admit this has been a long time ago...but I knew a woman who had a heart attack in London and when presented with the best of NHS chose to book a flight home to the good old US to be treated. This despite being advised that there was a very real risk of her death on the flight back. Course George Harrison did the same thing looking for cancer treatment during the furor over Hillary Care. [awwwww shadddup and go drink yer wine old man, this is the 21st century] Syloson of Samos \| August 21, 2007, 1:19pm \| # I'd be curious to see how much of the difference can be attributed to cultural factors. UCrawford \| August 21, 2007, 1:22pm \| # I remember when I was living in England a couple of years ago there was a rash of stories on the BBC about how people in northern England were basically forced to pull their own teeth since the NHS basically had a monoply on dentistry and had cut back on the numbers of dentists available for each region to save money (in some areas one NHS dentist was responsible for servicing 5 or 6 towns), so the people couldn't get appointments. The government finally opened up dental care to private industry after a big outcry...it's unsurprising that the private sector is offering better care. Episiarch \| August 21, 2007, 1:22pm \| # As an American who has been treated by the NHS, I can tell you that it is fucking horrible. I had one NHS doctor say to me with a sneer "I don't know what your American doctor is going to do, but I wouldn't operate on your foot." This was a foot expert telling me he wouldn't fix my shattered heel (5 pieces) which would leave me a clubfoot and an inch or two shorter in one leg--essentially crippled. Mainly because foot operations can be dangerous if they become infected. I almost slugged him from my bed. So I went home to NYC and had the guy who fixes the feet and ankles of the New York Giants fix my foot. My (gasp, horror) private insurance paid for it, and he did a wonderful job. Fuck the NHS. telegraph.co.uk

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (160870)	7/22/2009 10:17:02 AM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 173976

O'S BROKEN PROMISES By BETSY MCCAUGHEY July 17, 2009 -- PRESIDENT Obama promises that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," even after he reforms our health-care system. That's untrue. The bills now before Congress would force you to switch to a managed-care plan with limits on your access to specialists and tests. Two main bills are being rushed through Congress with the goal of combining them into a finished product by August. Under either, a new government bureaucracy will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these "qualified plans." If you now get your plan through work, your employer has a five-year "grace period" to switch you into a qualified plan. If you buy your own insurance, you'll have less time. And as soon as anything changes in your contract -- such as a change in copays or deductibles, which many insurers change every year -- you'll have to move into a qualified plan instead (House bill, p. 16-17). When you file your taxes, if you can't prove to the IRS that you are in a qualified plan, you'll be fined thousands of dollars -- as much as the average cost of a health plan for your family size -- and then automatically enrolled in a randomly selected plan (House bill, p. 167-168). It's one thing to require that people getting government assistance tolerate managed care, but the legislation limits you to a managed-care plan even if you and your employer are footing the bill (Senate bill, p. 57-58). The goal is to reduce everyone's consumption of health care and to ensure that people have the same health-care experience, regardless of ability to pay. Nowhere does the legislation say how much health plans will cost, but a family of four is eligible for some government assistance until their household income reaches $88,000 (House bill, p. 137). If you earn more than that, you'll have to pay the cost no matter how high it goes. The price tag for this legislation is a whopping $1.04 trillion to $1.6 trillion (Congressional Budget Office estimates). Half of the tab comes from tax increases on individuals earning $280,000 or more, and these new taxes will double in 2012 unless savings exceed predicted costs (House bill, p. 199). The rest of the cost is paid for by cutting seniors' health benefits under Medicare. There's plenty of waste in Medicare, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates only 1 percent of the savings under the legislation will be from curbing waste, fraud and abuse. That means the rest will likely come from reducing what patients get. One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration." This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues? Shockingly, only a portion of the money accumulated from slashing senior benefits and raising taxes goes to pay for covering the uninsured. The Senate bill allocates huge sums to "community transformation grants," home visits for expectant families, services for migrant workers -- and the creation of dozens of new government councils, programs and advisory boards slipped into the last 500 pages. The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll (June 21) finds that 83 percent of Americans are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the quality of their health care, and 81 percent are similarly satisfied with their health insurance. They have good reason to be. If you're diagnosed with cancer, you have a better chance of surviving it in the United States than anywhere else, according to the Concord Five Continent Study. And the World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors. Congress should pursue less radical ways to cover the uninsured. We have too much to lose with this legislation. Betsy McCaughey is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York. betsy@hospitalinfection.org nypost.com