Study: France is healthcare leader, US comes dead last

JD Sal

Surprisingly, I didn't see a thread about this.

I guess the results from this study shouldn't come as a shock since the US ranks 37th in life expectancy and infant mortality rate.

http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/ranking_Infant_Mortality_Rate_aall.htm

link

WASHINGTON (AFP) - France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective healthcare to its citizens, according to a survey Tuesday of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries.

The study by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs measured developed countries' effectiveness at providing timely and effective healthcare.

The study, entitled "Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis," was written by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It looked at death rates in subjects younger than 75 that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care.

The researchers found that while most countries surveyed saw preventable deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States saw only a four percent dip.

The non-profit Commonwealth Fund, which financed the study, expressed alarm at the findings.

"It is startling to see the US falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen, who noted that "other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less."

The 19 countries, in order of best to worst, were: France, Japan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Some countries showed dramatic improvement in the periods studied -- 1997 and 1998 and again between 2002 and 2003 -- outpacing the United States, which showed only slight improvement.

White the United States ranked 15th of 19 between 1997-98, by 2002-03 it had fallen to last place.

"It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the US," said Ellen Nolte, lead author of the study.

Had the United States performed as well as any of the top three industrialized countries, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths per year, the researchers said.

Indian Summer

they had to do a study, to know that the U.S. had a shitty health care system! Talk about a waste of time and money!

my2hands

freedom fries...


nice find jdsal....


i want some slow lukin!!!!!!!

my2hands

Indian Summer wrote:

they had to do a study, to know that the U.S. had a shitty health care system! Talk about a waste of time and money!

i watched the republican debate the a few nights ago and all of the candidates (minus 1) kept saying that we had the best health care in the world and that all was fine


hubris is dangerous...

jlew24asu

shouldn't the first time line look this?...........

France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective free healthcare to its citizens,


I think the united states has close to the best healthcare and doctors. its just not affordable for some.

Anon

Interesting that Australia ranked third. The health system there is failing, the mental health system is attrocious, the elderly are all but forgotten, patients are dying in hospital waiting rooms, mums are giving birth to babies in bathrooms while they wait for attention in emergency departments, and the medical staff work under extreme pressures in the larger hospitals due to staff shortages because of budget funding cuts. Females and men are sharing hospital wards in some areas and the waiting lists for elective surgery are longer than ever.

I'ts only going to get worse as the population ages and time goes on. It's bad enough now. Aged care, Mental Health, and the Health System in general is in crisis and neither party satisfactorily addressed it in the recent election campaign. It's a nightmare. There will be much back slapping and yay for us and meetings of epic proportions and epic erections going on over there over this third ranking, but the cold hard facts are that the system there is crap. And it's getting worse.

sponger

Therein lies the dichotomy of free-market medical care. On the one hand, you have brilliant doctors and state of the art technology. On the other, there are the countless less fortunate who will never see any of it.

chopitdown

does that study reflect our healthcare or the attitudes and behaviors of our population? If you have great healthcare in a country yet, many of the people in the country set themselves up for health problems, it seems it's more of a demand (sick people) side issue than a supply (doctors) issue. We're the number 9th ranked country for obesity and i'm sure there's other great stats like that one to show that we're a nation of people who aren't proactive about our own healthcare. We have a lot of great doctors, but dont blame the healthcare system for the actions of people who get themselves in this position to have to be cared for. We absolutely can improve our health care system, but we can hardly blame it for day to day choices that people make that effect their health negatively.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

slip sliding away...

.

jlew24asu

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

slip sliding away...

.

what is?

Commy

jlew24asu wrote:

shouldn't the first time line look this?...........

France is tops, and the United States dead last, in providing timely and effective free healthcare to its citizens,


I think the united states has close to the best healthcare and doctors. its just not affordable for some.

Not being able to afford the best healthcare in the world is the same thing as not having health care at all.

jeffbr

Commy wrote:

Not being able to afford the best healthcare in the world is the same thing as not having health care at all.

Not to the people who can afford it.

jlew24asu

Commy wrote:

Not being able to afford the best healthcare in the world is the same thing as not having health care at all.

thats not my problem. I work hard. and in doing so I can afford to give myself access to the best healthcare in the world. I do not want in handed to me for free thus lowering my quality of care.

Kel Varnsen

jlew24asu wrote:

thats not my problem. I work hard. and in doing so I can afford to give myself access to the best healthcare in the world. I do not want in handed to me for free thus lowering my quality of care.

I am wondering because I have seen this argument 100's of times, but do you feel the same way about public education? I mean the exact same argument could be made for elementary school where if school was only available to those who could afford to pay for it, classes would be smaller and only the best teachers would have jobs. If you don't feel the same way about education please explain to me what the difference is? Personally I see a lot of similar advantages when comparing a public health system and a public education system.

Dylan Stone

jlew24asu wrote:

thats not my problem. I work hard. and in doing so I can afford to give myself access to the best healthcare in the world. I do not want in handed to me for free thus lowering my quality of care.

I work hard too. I am a social worker with a masters degree. I took time off to raise my child and had to pay $1100 COBRA monthly in order to do so. It's a fucked and flawed system. Now I will get a new job and they won't provide any healthcare for us for 6 months...And during the change over from one "system" to another...my infant wasn't covered. I am a social worker and know how to work within these systems...and still we are relatively fucked and guess what...no one cares. "Oh..Your toddler can't be placed on this plan until the end ofthe month." "Yeah...But we were dropped on the 7th of the month." "Oh. Well This is the rule."

The system is FUCKED beyond fucked. The MAIN REASON I am returning to work and putting my child into full-time day care is so I can have access to affordable health care. As a social worker I only make in the mid 40's and that will just about cover day care and health care with a little to spare. Even when I get "covered" It will cost a few hundred each month...and I'll only have to tap into my savings a little to pay for all the other stuff. Woo Hoo!!! My kid can get a strep test when he needs it!!

jlew24asu

GTFLYGIRL wrote:

I work hard too. I am a social worker with a masters degree. I took time off to raise my child and had to pay $1100 COBRA monthly in order to do so. It's a fucked and flawed system. Now I will get a new job and they won't provide any healthcare for us for 6 months...And during the change over from one "system" to another...my infant wasn't covered. I am a social worker and know how to work within these systems...and still we are relatively fucked and guess what...no one cares. "Oh..Your toddler can't be placed on this plan until the end ofthe month." "Yeah...But we were dropped on the 7th of the month." "Oh. Well This is the rule."

The system is FUCKED beyond fucked. The MAIN REASON I am returning to work and putting my child into full-time day care is so I can have access to affordable health care. As a social worker I only make in the mid 40's and that will just about cover day care and health care with a little to spare. Even when I get "covered" It will cost a few hundred each month...and I'll only have to tap into my savings a little to pay for all the other stuff. Woo Hoo!!! My kid can get a strep test when he needs it!!

nobody forced you to be a social worker. nobody forced you to work for the firm that offered you nothing. we all have choices. you made yours, not you want me to pay for your health insurance?

I would be all for the government paying for children's healthcare but dont blame me or ask me to pay for your choices.

blackredyellow

jlew24asu wrote:

thats not my problem. I work hard. and in doing so I can afford to give myself access to the best healthcare in the world. I do not want in handed to me for free thus lowering my quality of care.

But that's the thing, your job/insurance company has you by the balls. I'll use you as an example (not that I am wishing health problems on you or anyone, but just as a hypothetical) If something unfortunately does go wrong (cancer, ongoing disease or whatever) and you need expensive health care, you can bet your ass that your insurance company that you paid into for years will do everything in their power not to pay.

If you have insurance through work, and you switch jobs (and insurance companies), then your new company with always have that pre-existing condition to get out of paying for new health care, and if you are self employed, they can just keep jacking up your rates until you can't pay it. Then no one will take you with your condition.

jlew24asu

blackredyellow wrote:

But that's the thing, your job/insurance company has you by the balls. I'll use you as an example (not that I am wishing health problems on you or anyone, but just as a hypothetical) If something unfortunately does go wrong (cancer, ongoing disease or whatever) and you need expensive health care, you can bet your ass that your insurance company that you paid into for years will do everything in their power not to pay.

If you have insurance through work, and you switch jobs (and insurance companies), then your new company with always have that pre-existing condition to get out of paying for new health care, and if you are self employed, they can just keep jacking up your rates until you can't pay it. Then no one will take you with your condition.

I'm no expert on insurance companies but from my experience, even with having a very sick mother, insurance companies have always been fair. and then once we get to a certain age, the government helps with medicare/medicad. (that could use some fixing but in my experience has been ok)

I happen to believe if we give healthcare away for free, quality of care will decrease dramatically over time.. and I dont want the red tape, dumbfuck, government bureaucracy having my healthcare "by the balls" as you say.

Dylan Stone

jlew24asu wrote:

nobody forced you to be a social worker. nobody forced you to work for the firm that offered you nothing. we all have choices. you made yours, not you want me to pay for your health insurance?

I would be all for the government paying for children's healthcare but dont blame me or ask me to pay for your choices.

Choices? I guess I had a choice to have a child. Sure. I could have had an abortion. And I guess we all have choice to not give a shit about other people.

My agency offered things. HOWEVER. The Family Leave Act allows for 12 weeks. I had some complications that required me to leave my job 5 weeks before my son was born. That left me leaving a 7 week old to be cared for by strangers if I returned to work. So I had a choice. I could work full time and pay most of my $$ to have my seven week old cared for by strangers.

Which brings us to the problem of affordable, quality day care. Also relatively non-existant. I guess you are lucky and are one of the few "haves." You may not always be. I sort of am too. That is why I could afford to do what I have done and my child has had insurance and good care...given by his mother. He knows his mom..and isn't left crying in a high chair for hours on end with a wet diaper..being cared for by someone who doesn't care about kids and frequently end up in these jobs because they are not "qualified" i.e...no hs diploma required... to do any other job. (The kind of care frequently given to children of people with very limited incomes...i.e....the working poor) Lucky him and lucky me. I also recognize this fact and that it may not always be that way. Life can turn on people faster than you can turn your head.

I chose to spend a good deal of my savings so we could have healthcare. That is a choice we have to make in this country.
I guess I could have chosen a field that paid more money. I just give a shit about other people. Someone has to.

Commy

jeffbr wrote:

Not to the people who can afford it.

When did dollars become worth more than human lives?

Bu2

Commy wrote:

When did dollars become worth more than human lives?

I don't know you, Commy, but I LOVE you for saying that.