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As American legislators debate the overhaul of our health care system, they may want to check the most recent report card. The Conference Board of Canada has been issuing health care report cards since 1996. This year Canada earned a B based on objective criteria such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and deaths from cancer. The United States placed last out of the 16 developed countries considered in the report and earned a D.
This is especially interesting in light of the fact that the Canadians spend less per person and a smaller per cent of GDP.
Who did this research? You cannot tell me that US healthcare deserves a D grade and Canada a B. That is such a crock! I am not a liberal as you may be, Government healthcare is not what we need and I hope it never happens. I am angry when I read such rubbish!!!
My husband has been advised to take glucosamine to relieve symptoms of arthritis. We have heard glusoamine is somewhat related to heparen, which he is allergic to. What is the relationship of glucosamine to heparen?
PEOPLE'S PHARMACY RESPONSE: SUPER-SULFATED CHONDROITIN WAS USED AS AN ADULTERANT IN THE HEPARIN SCANDAL. THE HEPARIN MOLECULE CONTAINS SOME FORMS OF HEPARIN.
Could you please provide a link to the report so we can check and compare the data?
Not at all surprising if you've been looking at worldwide health outcomes. Certainly just being the fattest nation on earth has to affect our ranking.
Hopefully JAS has had time to reread the article. It's not about Government-run health-care at all. Regardless of the system, the bottom line to me is improving overall outcomes.
The US Health Care System is in trouble and all the righteous indication, denial, name calling and angry rhetoric wont fix it. The only thing that will fix it is action! And by the way, I've been a Conservative for 35 years and I think Social Programs like Social Security and Medicare have been good for Americans.
The Conference Board of Canada seems to be rather critical of Canada. In their ranking of health care systems, which seems to focus on mortality from cancer and chronic diseases, only rates Canada at 10th of 16, while the US is 16th. See http://sso.conferenceboard.ca/HCP/Details/Health.aspx . They only assign grades A-D rather than specific mortality rates or lifespan.
Another interesting look at the cost of US health care is at
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2009/06/atul-gawande-the-cost-conundrum-redux.html . (This is a follow-up comment; see the link to the original article.) The author asks why, in 2006 in McAllen, TX, did it cost $14,946 per Medicare enrollee, which is the second-highest in the United States and essentially double El Paso, TX’s cost of $7,504. And McAllen had no better, but perhaps slighly worse, health outcomes despite spending twice as much money on each Medicare beneficiary than in El Paso.
The Mayo Clinic has a Medicare cost 14% BELOW average for the US. So if Mayo Clinic ran the entire US health care system, we would have no health financing crisis and much better health.