Re: OT: Health care in other countries

Richard Henry wrote:
On Feb 24, 12:12 am, James Arthur <bogusabd...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
James Arthur wrote:
Nobody wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:09:31 +0000, Ross Herbert wrote:
:I was reading a book "My Descent into Death" where the author
mentioned,
:in 1985, being in a hospital in Paris, France. He mentioned the nurses
:were not authorized to give him painkillers, and the sole doctor in the
:ER was going home for the weekend.
:
:My nephew today over lunch told me he heard on the radio recently
about a
:French-American woman who had lumps on her breast, and the French doc
:wouldn't do a thing for her. She had to fly to America to get a proper
:diagnosis done and surgery performed, all the while suffering from
pain.
:
:How is health insurance in Europe and elsewhere?
:
:Not looking for a flame war, just would like to know how it is
elsewhere.
:
:Thanks,
:
:Michael
I find that hearsay evidence difficult to believe. France has had an
active breast cancer screening program since the early 90's and women
can
have a mammography as easily as anywhere else in the western world.
Up to
40,000 french women every year have partial or total mastectomy and I am
sure that early stage breast cancer would be appropriately treated with
radiation and chemo-therapy in cases not requiring radical surgery.
I'm similarly sceptical (or, more accurately, reminded of the saying that
"the plural of anecdote is not data").
A WHO survey from a few years back put France in first place for overall
provision of health care; surveys of life expectancy and infant mortality
invariably put France in or around the top ten. E.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
CIA World Factbook = 11th territory, 8th nation
UN = 10th
[US = 30th/45th and 38th respectively.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
CIA = 6th (217th of 222, in decreasing order of infant mortality).
UN = 12th (184th of 195, ditto)
[US = 43rd and 33rd respectively.]

Now, there are a whole lot of other factors which can affect life
expectancy and infant mortality, aside from healthcare. OTOH, trying to
quantify "healthcare" is far from straightforward.

Infant mortality is a poor metric for comparison, since the different
countries calculate it differently. In particular, the U.S. includes
all births, while certain European and Asian nations exclude premature,
low birth weight babies, those with birth defects, stillborns, and
generally, babies judged 'non-viable.'
That impacts our life-expectancy as well--adding in a few zeroes
drags down the average.
A much better metric for comparing healthcare quality might
cancer survival.

Hmmm...here's some data, but the comparison still isn't clear
since the prevalent cancers are somewhat lifestyle related,
which might not be comparable country-to-country.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/561737

Please don't post links that require registration.

Thanks for pointing that out. I despise registration.

I originally got there straight from a Google search for
"cancer survival europe," then cut-n-pasted the URL.
No registration required. But I see that now it asks.

Repeating the search in Google, I can still get the article the
same way with no hassle. Search as above, it's about the sixth
hit, and the first hit I saw comparing US v. Europe.

"Cancer Survival Rates Improving Across Europe, But Still Lagging Behind United States"

"...Survival was significantly higher in the United States for
all solid tumors, except testicular, stomach, and soft-tissue
cancer, the authors report. The greatest differences were seen
in the major cancer sites: colon and rectum (56.2% in Europe vs
65.5% in the United States), breast (79.0% vs 90.1%), and
prostate cancer (77.5% vs 99.3%),..."

Cheers,
James Arthur
.

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