America's Healthcare System Still Works

Proponents like to argue that while American health costs are second to none, the overall quality is poor, that the United States trails other countries in measures like life expectancy. Last week, Investor’s Business Daily had an excellent editorial on health care busting this myth.

Should America expand the government’s role in health care? Proponents like to argue that while American health costs are second to none, the overall quality is poor.  Indeed, they often go a step further, arguing the United States trails other countries in measures like life expectancy. Last week, Investor’s Business Daily had an excellent myth-busting editorial on health care.  In seven paragraphs, the essay shreds that argument.

America has the best health care in the world, and most Americans know it. Yet we hear that many "go without care" while in nationalized systems it is "guaranteed."

U.S. life expectancy in 2006 was 78.1 years, ranking behind 30 other countries. So if our health care is so good, why don't we live as long as everyone else?

Three reasons. One, our homicide rate is two to three times higher than other countries. Two, because we drive so much, we have a higher fatality rate on our roads — 14.24 fatalities per 100,000 people vs. 6.19 in Germany, 7.4 in France and 9.25 in Canada. Three, Americans eat far more than those in other nations, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.

These are diseases of wealth, not the fault of the health care system. A study by Robert Ohsfeldt of Texas A&M and John Schneider of the University of Iowa found that if you subtract our higher death rates from accidents and homicide, Americans actually live longer than people in other countries.

In countries with nationalized care, medical outcomes are often catastrophically worse. Take breast cancer. According to the Heritage Foundation, breast cancer mortality in Germany is 52% higher than in the U.S.; the U.K.'s rate is 88% higher. For prostate cancer, mortality is 604% higher in the U.K. and 457% higher in Norway. Colorectal cancer? Forty percent higher in the U.K.

But what about the health care paradise to our north? Americans have almost uniformly better outcomes and lower mortality rates than Canada, where breast cancer mortality is 9% higher, prostate cancer 184% higher and colon cancer 10% higher.

Then there are the waiting lists. With a population just under that of California, 830,000 Canadians are waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment. In England, the list is 1.8 million deep.

But proponents of ObamaCare should dust themselves off.  Maybe British-style health care isn’t superior in outcomes, but do people in countries with socialized medicine have better sex? National Health Service bureaucrats certainly hope that people, including teens, will exercise their “right” to “an orgasm a day.”