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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.
I am shocked that people with money get better services.
Good old equality, American style. A person shouldn't be blackmailed with their own life.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
<PROGRESSIVE> We must restrict health care access for the well-off so we're all equally shitty. Venezuela is our model! Isn't great how much smarter than you rubes we progressives are!</PROGRESSIVE>
I suppose "Cancer death rates plummeting" might not have generated quite as many clicks.
Come on, editors. You're better than this.
They do.
But keep pushing the Slashdot Socialist agenda.
And, yes, you can buy cigarettes with food stamps. I've known people who do.
Having health insurance doesnt mean you have access to healthcare... it means you have access to excuses.
"Call our 800 number any time for a list of excuses why your treatments wont be covered. And dont forget to thank your employer for the thousands of dollars of free money the send us every month... what a bunch of suckers those guys are!"
The premise of the story about wealthy is not possible. Obamacare fixed all of this, we had to pass the bill to see what was in it and it would solve all medical access problems for the poor.
Why do they lie?
Everybody knows the true cancer to america is the wealthy !
That and the silly rednecks we were brought up to cilivity standards by the wealthy to subdue the middle class.
If you look at the amount of bullshit "cures" being peddled that allegedly cure cancer, I have to wonder if it's correlated with money or the fact that fools and their money usually don't spend much time together and it's mostly idiots that gravitate to some "alternative cancer cures"...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The poor should not have to suffer with cancer. Instead, they should quickly be made into Soylent Green for everyone to enjoy.
One group with low rates of cancers are people who work in the nuclear industry or on navy ships. They don't have shocking better healthcare plans than most middleclass folks so it may not just be wealth buying better health care. One guess is that by the nature of the work they are industrious people self selected to have otherwise healthy lifestyles but even studies trying to control for that still find lower cancer rates. Another possibility of course is that low level nuclear radiation is good for you. Since life evolved in a higher radiation level environment than today, it might not be shocking if multi-cellular animals figured out some way to differentially profit from radiation over their single cell parasites. But that's a stretch too. An even more likely hypothesis is apparently nuclear material environments actually are less toxic than others. That too would not be surprising since Nuclear is all about safety and avoiding accidents so hazards are controlled carefully. A final hypothesis remaining is that it's not that bad for you in low doses compared to the variability in life itself.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Growth in cancer doesn't necessarily mean an increase in cancer, it means a decrease in other causes of death. So, a decrease in cancer might indicate increases in other, presumably preventable ways to die. Another way to put it is, that if you remove all the other causes of death you'd still be left with cancer.
I have a friend who works in oncology (he is a surgeon). He basically said that immunotherapy is incredible, and within 5 years he believes that those with enough money will be treated for many types of cancer by customised immunotherapy. They will go in every two weeks and a team will adjust the therapy based on the cancer's response until the cancer is gone. Add to this the work being done on early detection, and cancer could soon become nothing more than a strain on your bank account.
Everyone else will continue to get cut, burn and poison. Having said that, this is how the economy has always progressed, and in 20 years when patents have run out and the treatments have become more mature, we can all look forward to this sort of thing.
Certainly an exciting time to be alive.
I was paying $100's a month for health insurance that covered exactly nothing, zilch, nada. I never once found anything that it actually paid for.
My new policy has the exact same coverage and costs 100% less.
Cancer is being detected and treated at earlier stages, so it's possible to have a similarly misleading title that says Cancer in America is Way Up. What the story is really about is that deaths from cancer is falling, particularly for people who can afford better treatment, which often requires time away from work.
I was told, in all seriousness, that my cancer was caused by wheat and I should stop eating bread rather than having surgery and chemo.
I hope it wasn't someone who one would usually take serious when they say bullshit like that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'll bet you a lot of money both the reduction in cancer, and the disparity between income levels is because of smoking. Poor people just smoke in higher numbers. If you're middle class it's totally uncool to smoke. Not as much if you're working class.
Frankly, this is good news. It just means we need to do a better job at reducing smoking rates among working class people.
Canada allows people to enter the private market for health insurance because they found it was against human rights to force people to only have a government option.
The rich are always better off. Trying to make life more difficult for them just compounds on those who don't have the money.
Work Safe Porn
And highly trained medical staff shouldn't be forced into slavery, to take care of every health issue for people who can't or won't pay anything for it. So what do you do?
You stop setting up strawmen, and creating false dichotomies where none exist.
Even in the most socialized medical systems, Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are paid, generally quite well for whatever country they are in. Maybe not "I'll buy myself a second Beech Bonanza (aka "Doctor Killer")" or "I'll take that yacht" kind of well paid, but certainly well enough.
They're paid, not expected to work for free, so you're false statement that any kind of universal access to medical care irrespective of means does not equal slavery, nor does getting paid by the government, rather than some for-profit conglomerate. Unless of course your Republican president is unable to pass a budget with a Republican controlled congress and you decide to arbitrarily shut down the government because the pundits on Fox made you feel insecure. Then you could make the argument that those government employees required to work without pay are enslaved, but that's a completely different issue.
We are the only industrialized, so-called "first world" country (I say "so-called" because the rest of the "first world" has progressed and moved on while we've stagnated and moved backwards, so by comparison we are more similar in our quality of living to third world countries than we are, say, to Europe or Japan, especially when it comes to medicine and other basic services.
But nice try. "We should let the poor die because to do otherwise is to enslave doctors" is an argument that works quite well with the right, but then, so does "I've got a nice Wall I'd like to sell you for $25 Billion, but I promise Mexico will pay you back because I said so!" so I that's not saying much either.
That those three mentioned kinds of cancer are due to the following:
Cervical Cancer: Promiscuity, likely via HPV infections.
Colon Cancer: Same but for gay men, and red meat eaters.
Lung Cancer: Hello, smoking, mining, air pollution.
And we now know why so many rural folk are dying of cancer.
Slowing winning the battle to misunderstand and misapply basic science into a political philosophy... because it fits the belief in a meritocracy measured by wealth, which happens to largely be generational. We have to keep maintaining the status quo, can't destabilize those with the wealth.
Never mind the evolved tribalism and social skills that were proven successful, lets literally act like Neanderthals despite that their nuclear family approach led them to extinction despite larger brains.
Rationing healthcare is better when you have limited resources; everybody in an emergency survival situation does rationing after the group deals with the anti-social pricks... since humans scale poorly, it gets more difficult to manage; as the anti-social cliche villains end up banding together to create a gang (which is a weaker social group dependent upon exploiting others to limit internal strife; being made up of anti-socials... The rational tends towards rank by power to justify external behaviors and is likely applied within the group too.) Just my observation.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Sigh. Never post before your first coffee.
"We are the only industrialized, so-called "first world" country (I say "so-called" because the rest of the "first world" has progressed and moved on while we've stagnated and moved backwards, so by comparison we are more similar in our quality of living to third world countries than we are, say, to Europe or Japan, especially when it comes to medicine and other basic services."
should read:
We are the only industrialized, so-called "first world" country not to have universal healthcare (I say "so-called" because the rest of the "first world" has progressed and moved on while we've stagnated and moved backwards, so by comparison we are more similar in our quality of living to third world countries than we are, say, to Europe or Japan, especially when it comes to medicine and other basic services).
The article is actually about the reduced rate of death from cancer, not that cancer occurrence is down.
Isn't there supposed to be a link between cigarettes and cancer? Stop buying cigarettes and you will be healthier with more money. Win win
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Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If the poor would simply stop doing shit that will harm them like smoke cigarettes or eat gluttonous amounts of unhealthy foods their cancer rates would go down as well. Why should any American be held at gunpoint to pay for the piss-poor decisions of another? All this does is encourage the lazy moochers to make poor decisions that will make us all weak in the long run. Government intervention outside of the boundaries of the constitution always leads to results like this. Time to end all social programs, time to stop enabling poor decision making.
15 years ago my colon medicine was $25 per month -- I was re-assigned to take in again and it is currently $1000 per month -- I don't have that $$$ so I don't get to take that very common medicine which will cause me to get the main issue sooner -- maybe the medical industry received a population purge order?
The wealthy are getting better medical treatement than the poor, and that's exactly how conservatives want things to be.
Let's not beat around the bush: Conservatives are social darwinists. When confronted about it, not only are they not denying it, they're actually proud of it. They want social inequality. In their minds, all rich people are smart, deserving, hard working people who make smart decisions in life, and all poor people are stupid, lazy, parasitic slobs who deserve what they get. And every human being on Earth falls neatly into one of those two categories. After all, binary thinking is also a defining trait of the conservative mindset.
They ignore the possibility that some of those poor, suffering, sick people may be children who are suffering because of their parents situation. And those who acknowlege it, don't care. That's right. They don't care about children suffering and dying. To them, it's in the order of things. Children of rich, wealthy parents should reek the benefits of having been born with a silver spoon in their mouth, therefore perpetuating their parents' good genes/values. Similarly, children of poor parents should suffer and die, putting an end to their parents' bad lineage. Social darwinism.
Remember: American society wasn't built on the same principles that guide other evolved, advanced societies, it was built on one,and only one, principle: Freedom. And that includes freedom to be a heartless, cold, miserable sack of pus, and to elect one as their president.
Me personnaly, as far as liberals vs conservatives go, the former may have no brains, but the latter have no heart, and I know exactly which ones I'd rather have as friends.
Yes, it's well known that the poor have ample money to pay for high-priced "alternative" medicine out of pocket.
Oh wait.....
inmates get better medical then poor people. If you have diabetes and the GOP cuts off medicaid you may be better off in jail vs only having the ER.
In addition to less access to healthcare, I suspect that people in lower-income groups have additional risk factors. Blue-collar workers and the casually employed are probably more likely to be exposed to higher levels of carcinogens in their workplaces. I would guess that they also, on the average, eat a higher percentage of processed foods such as nitrate-laden meats. And I bet they're less likely to have the same kind of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Plus, quality and level of education are a factor in the healthfulness of dietary choices.
In our society all of these factors are fairly-well correlated with economic prosperity. The healthcare gap is important to note and to address, but it shouldn't blind us to other factors in the discrepancy in cancer rates between rich and poor. That's especially so if some of these other factors turn out to be more easily and quickly corrected for.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
"Alternative" quackery needn't be expensive. You can make a shitload of money by selling bleach, just sell a few milliliters for 10s of dollars (where you buy a few gallons for 5 bucks) and you're set.
You don't have to sell for a lot if you can sell a lot. All that matters is that you yourself pay pennies for what you sell for dollars.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Being of a certain age, I just had my first colonoscopy. It was not a pleasant procedure overall, so I can see why many would skip it, despite its life-saving ability (my sister's friend recently died of colon cancer, at my age). I have found that hand-waving-dismissal attitude about health prevalent among the less intelligent I've known.
The wealthy can afford to eat real food, and a balanced diet including fresh fruits and vegetables. The poor and working class can afford Chef Boyardee and other Monsanto Frankenfood.
Last time I was at the grocery, a freakin celery bunch was $4. If you're trying to feed your family on minimum wage and no benefits, your $4 is going to buy cheap processed foods with little/no nutritional value - so little in fact that you're going to have to eat 4000 calories/day of it to get the micronutrients you need, which in turn will make you obese, give you diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, which you won't be able to afford to treat because your minimum wage, 28 hour/week job has no health care benefits and you can't afford a doctor, let alone prescription medications. So, you'll die a slow agonizing death from out-of-control diabetes and colon cancer while your children are saddled with a half million dollars in student loan debt trying to get a degree that will enable them to get a $50k/year job and be indentured to the lender for the rest of their lives, so they can have a little extra money to pay for your burial.
So yeah, if you're wealthy, you can afford not to die.
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Air pollution causes a lot more cancer than we like to talk about.
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The problem is that poor people spend what little money they earn (or are given through welfare) on beer, cigarettes, dip, and lottery tickets, and not health insurance or routine care.
Every time I get gas at the station near my house, there's a line of people buying one or more of those four things - "oh and can I have two dollars on pump 5?"
It's an astonishing lack of education combined with a general attitude of apathy after being beaten down by their wealthy masters. It's amazing how much effort the US government expends to keep poor people poor, and make rich people richer.
For example, you can get on welfare and food stamps, but once you do, don't you dare get a job, because for every dollar you make, we're going to take away at least a dollar's worth of your benefits.
Medicaid? Damn, son, you'd better stay COMPLETELY broke if you want to keep your medical care. Medicaid is the primary reason poor people have to RENT everything at exorbitant prices - to avoid showing assets that can disqualify them from medicaid. Seriously, that's some stupid shit right there.
Benefits are available for the poor, and those benefits require you remain poor or else you lose them disproportionately to any success you may have. The US Government, and democrats in particular, love having a large dependency class that depends on their spending on welfare.
Its caused by environmental factors that the American Cancer Society ignores. I cannot be all that supportive of the American Cancer Society. They are in bed with some of the largest companies that profit from the "treatment" of cancer. Instead of promoting healthy life styles (like nutrition), and working to reduce avoiding toxins (such as polluted air) they continually support drug and surgery options. For example, writes Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, "Zeneca Pharmaceuticals--a spin-off of Imperial Chemical Industries is one of the world's largest manufacturers of chlorinated and other industrial chemicals, including those incriminated as causes of breast cancer. Zeneca has also been the sole multimillion-dollar funder of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month since its inception in 1984, besides the sole manufacturer of Tamoxifen, the world's top-selling anticancer and breast cancer "prevention" drug, with $400 million in annual sales. For more information, check out: https://articles.mercola.com/s...
Your friend's Grandma either doesn't exist or (just as likely) really _is_ too old for treatment. I don't mean "we're gonna let old people die" old I mean "the treatment will kill you quicker than the cancer".
My mom died of Lung cancer. The treatment didn't stop the cancer, but it did make her last 4 years of life hell. Doctors have gotten a lot better at understanding what treatments are worthwhile. Me? I have no intention of going through that if I'm ever diagnosed.
Here's a more benign example: My dental hygienist started trying to sell me braces until the dentist came in and shut it down because, well, I'm 41 years old and it would be kind of silly at this point.
Meanwhile in America we get "Wallet Biopsies". Every time you go see a doctor somewhere in the back of their mind is "Can this person's insurance pay me for this"? A close family member of mine was on a steroid and now has screwed up bones because a doctor should have ordered an MRI to check for bone problems steroids can cause but didn't.
I found out later the reason was likely because when doctors order tests the insurance companies won't pay for them if the come up blank. What this means is that unless your very, very well off then your doctor is likely to avoid ordering tests until it's painfully obvious you're suffering symptoms. This means a lot of diseases won't be caught until it's too late.
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If you've become gluten-intolerant (or very gluten-sensitive), then yeah, would be a good idea to stay away from it.
Eating gluten with that condition results in inflammation, which you are perpetuating.
Chronic inflammation has been associated with cancer development, so it's not that far-fetched.
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Fix your eating. Fewer processed foods, 99% less sugar, more veggies and meats. Not too many fruits, no more than 1 piece in a day. Eating this way helps with cancer prevention.
Basically, we need to be mostly vegetarians with some meat 3-7 times a week. Cancer patients on chemo get into trouble for eating this way. https://www.mdanderson.org/pre...
A diet rich in plant foods, whole grains and legumes can give your body the range of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants it needs to stay healthy.
Plus, eating a variety of healthy foods can help prevent weight gain and decrease body fat. Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the most important thing you can do to reduce your risk of cancer.
Eat a plant-based diet.
Breads are an individual thing. I can tolerate a sandwich, but much more than that and my throat gets gunky. This condition changes as my weight increases. I'm more sensitive to this as I get older. In my 40s, it wasn't an issue.
Grains can cause issues for many people, especially wheat. How much, if any, you can tolerate is personal and changing.
Too much processing of any foods is bad.
Move a little - an hour walk daily will do wonders compared to what most diabetics do. If you can, up the intensity, take the stairs at work (up AND down). Science around HIT is true. Look at sprinters. why do they look so overall fit? It isn't just from sprinting. Do some HIT a few times a week, but also do things you enjoy. Do something, anything, at least 5 times a week and do something for a 3-8 hrs once a week.
Type-1 diabetes is completely different and definitely NOT a life choice.
You mean normal people who took responsibility for their own life and are educated and have normal job live longer, instead of being a parasite on someone else.
not about being "rich"....
If that theory were true then the headline would be "Rich people don't get cancer".
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Rich people don't smoke, don't eat crap and they exercise.
I could care less that cancer rates are down for the wealthy. Who honestly gives a shit when they do so much to prevent the working class from getting good healthcare, jobs, and homes. The fact that cancer rates are down for a mere 1% (if that) of the population is inconsequential.
Steve Jobs and Paul Allen.
I recall an episode of 60 Minutes about 5 years ago where Leslie Stahl said that they stopped doing cancer cure breakthrough stories for a while, because inevitably the hype wouldn't pan out. But the story they were doing on day was extraordinary (something about using gold nano particles and then heating them using a CAT scan) so they broke their own rule and went nuts on the telecast. Of course that also didn't pan out....
Cancer cure, AI, autonomous driving...things that are always 5 years out.
what helped (in the west):
- we now understand cancer, how it appears, functions, spreads, mutates. We knew much less only a few decades ago
- removal of carcinogens from food, environment, understanding nanotoxicity (asbestos, diesel exhaust...), attempts at reducing polution in cities
- lifestyle awareness
- better early detection, awareness of symptoms (internet!), vastly better imaging options and availability (echography, MR, CT, PET, SCEPT...)
- improvements, although gradual in 'traditional' treatment options - chemo, radiation & radiotherapy, surgery
what didn't:
- we live longer, some countries increased pollution. some countries are underdeveloped and lacking money. medical and pharma prices spiraling out of control (so not even public health services in Europe can afford the best for their patients).
And now we are getting to the point we can cure it, albeit with expensive personalized GMO immunotherapy. It will be like in the Elysium movie, only for the rich. At least for a while.
it has words "for the wealthy anyway"
which is false.
first of all, cancer rate has dropped for everyone in USA in last 25 years
the report then talks about poor countries vs. "wealthy" ones.
Yes, you read that right. Apparently he got that 7th heart in Mumbai, so I guess even a billionaire can't bypass the transplant criteria in the US.
Meat 7 days a week? Works for me. Recommended.
What good is "free" medical care ...
This is the "Let's Do Nothing!" response, combined with "I Learn Nothing From Foreigners", and "Throw Up Random Objections".
You fail because you are ignorant. You "know" that the US medical system is the best and all others are worse. Never mind numerous health and quality of life indicators, widely available, reliable, used for decades, that say otherwise.
To the specifics. Queues in a Single Payer system are dynamic and not FIFO. If you have a "rapid cancer", you get rapid treatment. Slow cancers (e.g. prostate cancer in older men) can get slow treatment with no difference in outcomes. Note that this does not guarantee a slower trip through the medical system, only that the system may take advantage if it has queues there.
Broken bones, ditto. Except that I've never heard of a week long delay in getting a bone set. You don't get to claim system-wide problems based upon that 1 forest ranger who broke a rib, that one time in 1976. And broken ribs are often not set but merely stabilized anyways.
Now let's get substantive. It's not free medical care but you probably know that considering "air quotes". The point is, a medical crisis in a Single Payer system isn't automatically a financial crisis too. In the U.S., unless you have employer provided insurance, or you are a wealthy person, it frequently is.
Single Payer is better for the Middle Class, better for the Poor, better for everyone who is in the 99%. The 1% get special deals and premium service no matter what the system is. They can and do take care of themselves. "Why build a system around the wealthy?" is the question you should be asking, and are not.
Stick you agenda up your ass. It is not "for the wealthy". The drop is primarily from tobacco smoking and other unhealthy activities declining and is cross bracket.
"In fact, I would argue that the goal of a nation should be to have the happiest people with the lowest GDP. Too much constant stress to produce takes people away from the meaningful things in life. Why have a population that works more than it has to?"
To the above statement? I'd say that's fine in a utopian ideal world. But people are simply NOT going to stay happy while nobody is really interested in doing any work to produce things of value. When you see these societies depicted in TV shows or movies, you'll notice they're almost always science-fiction universes with fantastic technologies (like the "replicator" in Star Trek) that magically break through this reality barrier. At the most basic level, we don't even maintain order without putting in continual work. The natural state of things tends towards chaos. And humans aren't happy and enjoying "meaningful things in life" while everything around them is unorganized chaos.
So the capitalist medical system is reducing cancer? How about the socialized systems? Better or worse?
You can both not require people to work and still reward the people who want to. Those two aren't mutually exclusive.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Occurrences of cancer are not down. It is the mortality rates that have reduced. Of course those with more wealth can afford to pay for treatment, can afford the "time off" to get those treatments and can afford the travel that is often required to get said treatment.
Tackling my last point first ....
Yeah... if you manage to KILL a patient while trying to treat them in a hospital, I think its obvious they can't just ask for a do over. How many times does the patient die right after a hospital procedure, vs. the times they're able to go home? (You're the one with all these percentages -- so I'm sure you can enlighten me? I'm thinking the ones who die are like 1/100th. of the customer base though?) I'm certain there are MANY situations where a surgery is botched, and the patient complains to a "brick wall", because the hospital and doctors are conditioned to never admit mistakes, and to prepare to defend themselves in litigation. The better and cheaper solution is to offer to make it right. How can this NOT be a good policy to improve healthcare?
Addressing your general life expectancy comparisons? That's an overly simplistic way to pretend to gauge "quality of healthcare". If a nation is full of people with a healthier lifestyle (less air pollution, better eating habits, less tendency to smoke, more inclined to get regular exercise, etc.) - they're going to have a better life expectancy, even if healthcare is relatively poor. I think by most standards, Americans do a lot of things that hurt their life expectancy -- and so far? The field of medicine still has a pretty terrible track record of actually curing illnesses, vs. treating symptoms.
I don't believe, either, that it's impossible for healthcare to be an efficient market. That may have traditionally been true, but that's also thanks to its development as a science that was generally considered too difficult for the average person to understand. Doctors really wanted to be treated like gods, and patients were constantly advised not to try to self-diagnose their own problems. In fact, they're advised to keep visiting doctors for "regular check-ups", because presumably, even if you're well and feel healthy, you're not REALLY able to be sure without a doctor looking you over and confirming it. With advancements like prevalent Internet access, people can research their own health matters and discover such things as drug side effects and dangerous interactions with other drugs on their own. When it's time to see a doctor for a problem, they can go in, armed with some education about their situation too. Hospitals are just starting to be forced to make their rate cards available to the public, too. That's been a huge issue until now, because the insurance companies know what hospitals want to charge for procedures -- but the individuals didn't. You should soon be able to call around and get quotes for medical procedures, just like you would for any other expensive service.
How many times does the patient die right after a hospital procedure
Every single patient who dies in a hospital. It's not like people go to the ER for entertainment.
I'm certain there are MANY situations where a surgery is botched, and the patient complains to a "brick wall", because the hospital and doctors are conditioned to never admit mistakes, and to prepare to defend themselves in litigation.
You are certain of many things that are wrong. This is one of them.
Malpractice costs are an extremely small percentage of medical costs. It is utterly dwarfed by everything else. You are attacking a single ant when there are several dozen anthills.
But it is the issue that would make those other profiteers more money, so they've spent a lot of time trying to convince you that they should get things like a free do-over for amputating the wrong leg.
The better and cheaper solution is to offer to make it right.
This is not actually possible to do in any surgery. The second surgery is always riskier, always causes longer recovery, and the vast majority of the time damage can not be fully repaired.
Again, I go blind if that ophthalmologist screws up. An error rebuilding a broken shoulder would cause permanent loss of motion or loss of feeling, depending on how they screwed up. Leaving around part of a diseased appendix kills the patient. Cutting the wrong "tube" during a vasectomy has irreversible consequences. Putting a stent in the wrong artery damages that artery forever. And so on.
How can this NOT be a good policy to improve healthcare?
Because it's about as possible as healing people with a Himalayan Salt Lamp. Much cheaper, but doesn't work terribly well.
Addressing your general life expectancy comparisons? That's an overly simplistic way to pretend to gauge "quality of healthcare".
So....the point of quality healthcare is to not make people live longer?
If a nation is full of people with a healthier lifestyle (less air pollution, better eating habits, less tendency to smoke, more inclined to get regular exercise, etc.) - they're going to have a better life expectancy, even if healthcare is relatively poor
Hmmmm....wonder if there's a reason I picked Canada for a comparison......almost like it's pretty similar to the US on those factors.....
The field of medicine still has a pretty terrible track record of actually curing illnesses, vs. treating symptoms.
This is only slightly more uninformed than your belief that surgery lets you have "do-overs".
With advancements like prevalent Internet access, people can research their own health matters and discover such things as drug side effects and dangerous interactions with other drugs on their own
How does your ability to google a test tell you the value of the test? It could save you a million dollars in expensive treatment, lost wages and suffering. Or not.
The only way to evaluate that test is to know all the details about your exact medical conditions, and how your personal history and other test results play into whatever that new test is looking for. And you can not find that kind of personalized information on WebMD. That will say "the test doesn't help 75% of the time" but you will not be able to evaluate if you are in that 25% where the test is critical. Because it's not possible to understand that without many years of intensive medical training. Heck, that's why specialists exist - even doctors can't properly evaluate every medical condition.
Efficient markets require that the purchasers have about the same information as the sellers. That's why insider trading is illegal. And that similarity of knowledge
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Maybe I've missed it, but is it being suggested the wealthy have better chances at *surviving* cancer then the so-not-well-off when they get it, or do they have less chances of getting it in the first place?