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Cancer in America Is Way Down, For the Wealthy Anyway (bloomberg.com)
The good news is that cancer in America was beaten back over the 25 years ending 2016, with death rates plummeting, particularly when it comes to the four most common types of the dreaded affliction. From a report: There's a caveat, however. Those gains have been reaped mostly by the well-off. While racial disparities have begun to narrow, the impact of limited access to treatment for the poorest Americans has increased wealth-based inequality, according to the American Cancer Society's annual update on trends and statistics. "Any time you have a disease as serious as cancer, when you have a substantial reduction in deaths, that's a notable achievement," said Len Lichtenfeld, the interim chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. "But there are still a lot of areas for improvement."
Health insurance and access to care can be an issue in some poor and rural portions of the country, where there are higher death rates of colon, cervical and lung cancers, according to Cancer Statistics 2019. While poverty was actually associated with lower rates of cancer mortality prior to the 1980s, that trend has since reversed, due in part to changes in diet and smoking as well as screening and treatment rates, the health organization said.
Health insurance and access to care can be an issue in some poor and rural portions of the country, where there are higher death rates of colon, cervical and lung cancers, according to Cancer Statistics 2019. While poverty was actually associated with lower rates of cancer mortality prior to the 1980s, that trend has since reversed, due in part to changes in diet and smoking as well as screening and treatment rates, the health organization said.
But will you actually get any care? I thought that to keep it affordable, you only get treatment if you meet certain criteria.
You thought wrong.
In other words, if you're 90 years old, no heart transplant for you, no matter how healthy you may otherwise be.
Guess what? No heart transplant for 90 year olds in the US either. The eligibility criteria for getting on the transplant list would exclude an otherwise-healthy 90 year old.
we had to pass the bill to see what was in it
The bill was available and debated for almost a year.
Obamacare fixed all of this
The way the ACA would have fixed this particular problem is Medicaid expansion. Which Republicans sued over. And are blocking in every state they can.
Why do they lie?
Why do you?
You've bought the anti-"socialized" medicine story. Most metrics, from longevity down, suggest that countries with modern health care systems (ranging from mostly public ones like in the UK and Canada, to the mostly private systems in Switzerland and Singapore) provide better care at a cheaper cost than does the US system.
In public systems care is prioritized by need. You generally have to wait for elective procedures, unless they would resolve a problem related to mobility or employment, but you don't have to wait for emergency or time-sensitive problems (broken bones, fast growing cancer). There's also fairly little medical tourism to the US. If you want to pay, you can find a private clinic in Canada that will do the job, still cheaper than an American one would.
Interestingly, mostly private systems ALSO seem to be more efficient than the US system, so it's not as simple as a public versus private system.