Socialized Medicine

In The Big Idea, AlexC asks what the Left stands for. If we had more progressives running around here (for better or worse), I've no doubt we would hear something about healthcare and some very large number n of uninsured Americans. If they have an idea, it includes greater government involvement in health care

They have an idea, and it's bad -- check out these statistics from a WSJ ed, Cancer Prognosis (paid again, sorry!) about how Cancer rates are dropping in the US.

Both are the result of medical innovation funded by government, private donations, and profit-making bio-medical and pharmaceutical companies. Colonoscopies, mammograms and other tests are more widely publicized and utilized. And new drug therapies, less punishing and invasive than surgery or chemotherapy, have been developed thanks to the incentives of a private medical marketplace.

This is in marked contrast to the anti-cancer record of government-run health systems elsewhere in the world. As Michael Tanner, health-care expert at the Cato Institute, notes: "Because cancer is a slow moving and expensive disease to treat, it is not cost-effective under socialized medicine to treat the disease too aggressively. This saves governments money but at a high human cost."

The statistics bear out Mr. Tanner's point. Only about one in five men with prostate cancer in the U.S. will die from it. But, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, about 57% of British men, and nearly half of French and German men, will do so. In Britain only 40% of cancer patients are even permitted to see an oncologist to treat the disease. Two-thirds of Canadian provinces report sending their colon cancer patients to the U.S. for treatment. Government-run medical systems can be as cruel to cancer patients as the cancer itself.

Twenty percent vs. 57%? Yeah, let's bring that great idea to this country!

Pharmaceuticals Posted by jk at February 23, 2006 5:11 PM