Cancer Treatment, How Does the US Stack Up?
We are told by liberals and various health organizations how the socialized health care systems around the world provide better health care than the US approach. And we are regularly told that we spend a fortune yet for worse outcomes. I have often suspected we aren’t getting the full story. One thing that matters is not how much we spend - but how much health care we get for every dollar spent. If Americans choose to spend more on health care, well there is nothing wrong with that.
Could all of the money we spend on health care actually be buying us some benefits when compared to other countries (rather than insurance companies grabbing all of this extra money as some claim)?
For example, if you get cancer, what country do you want to live in to get treatment? A new study compares cancer survival rates by country:
I am not one of those to claim that the US is better than other countries in every way imaginable. But if I ever get cancer, I know that I don’t have to be concerned about living in the wrong country for getting first rate treatment.
September 4th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
……………..and if we ate healthy diets, our cancer incidence and survival rates would just be that much higher still, making us the healthiest place on earth. We have first-rate medical care, but our diet/excercise habits do leave a little to be desired. I see alot of overweight children in the town where I live, and that is a bit strange. Its hard to kick these little habits because pizza and coca-cola tastes so good.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Funny, diet has nothing to do with the incurable cancer my father was diagnosed with during the holidays last year. It’s rare, and possibly caused by Agent Orange from his time in Vietnam.
I’ve already lived longer than I thought I would when I was a teen. No, I didn’t have any illnesses or anything… but I’ve smoked (quit that on my own years ago), drank, chewed tobacco, and eaten “bad” foods for most of my lifetime. I guess that comes with the territory when you work in kitchens for most of your life.
Back to the original topic… cancer treatments…
My father would probably be dead already if he lived in another country. The clinical trial he’s in at UW has stopped it from spreading thus far. His days are very numbered, but for now the excellent treatment of it has given me one more summer with my father… and hopefully another hunting season as well. He’s not going to be cured, but they are holding it off without chemo. That’s amazing on it’s own!
September 6th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Johnny,
I hope that you get to enjoy another hunting season with your father.
September 17th, 2007 at 4:13 am
I trained in statistics in my youth and would caution against drawing many conclusions from so narrowly defined data. True it does indicate cause for difference but without matching figures for population strata, cancer types and cost per person (to give proportional cost figures) there is not enough data to conclude very much.
For example do Americans get non-malignant skin cancer in greater numbers than say the UK (who say get untreatable bone cancer more)? Because of causes of differentiation the numbers could be biased.
What you can do is look for countries where there is a greater than 5% difference between survival rates for men and women which would indicate that one gender was missing out…
Something that does warrant more study is that the survival rate for men seems significantly better in the USA only. Where as for women it is within the 5% variance all the way down to Malta. This indicates that men are not getting something they need. I would suggest that this was education on male health. In the EU you could be forgiven for thinking only female breasts can carry cancer.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:57 am
hi. i have cancer but i want to live for a long time. and i beleive it
August 11th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
i agree with lord matt that the discrepancy between male and female survival is odd. the other point to note is how much are we paying for a 1-2% increase in survival compared to the other top 5 countries. in other words we pay an exhorbant amount for healthcare to only get a 1% increase in survival if your female. also this only includes europe — what about canada or australia?