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I guess hanging on in quiet desperation is the AMERICAN way. ;)
lol, it's funny to hear all the GOP lies that health care is worse in countries with socialized medicine.
We spend THIS MUCH more than they do on health care, and only get (this much) higher quality.
We spend 90% more than Canada, per capita, and only have 9% more doctors per capita.
If the only thing you can do to have a "competitive" system is to spend TWICE what they spend, then your system is far worse, dollar-for-dollar.
I'm glad the reform passed before the do-nothing Party took back the House. More people with insurance will be a huge net positive for all Americans. Yes, you'll pay higher taxes to help people who can't afford the full cost, but you'll pay LOWER premiums because hospitals aren't forced to transfer to your premiums the cost to treat the uninsured because that formerly uninsured person now has insurance...and there's no need to bankrupt them for having a sick child that insurance refused to accept.
Good for Britain...hopefully we'll have a system as efficient and universal as theirs soon (with our higher funding levels, of course).
BS, great Floydian twist!
Carl
It is easy to understand: Britain has a public health system where they cannot squeeze anyone for their last penny on Doctor's, Hospital's and Drug's payments. Thus they die quicker!
Here the Pharma/Hospital/Medical/Insurance Industry will keep you alive at any cost until you have spent the income of your Grandchildren, then they let you die by pulling coverage from you!
Yeah it does not say what the quality of life is for the people who live longer but have the chronic illness. I would rather be dead than be rotting in a bed.
News flash - letting the elderly, sickly die saves lots of money for universal health care systems (and insurance companies for that matter). The bad news here is who gets choose who to save???
You can't save anybody. The human mortality rate is 100%
The USA and Britain have both had socialized medicine for the elderly for decades: Medicare and the NHS, respectively (it's the rest of the U.S. population that's been playing the private insurance game).
Obviously, the USA spends more than TWICE what Britain spends on health care overall.
I wonder, if Britain were to magically bump their funding up to USA levels, by how much their system would outperform ours in life expectancy and quality-of-care...
No other country wants to emulate the American system.
But you're not allowed to talk about other countries. That's socialist and un-American!
We have to pretend our system is better so that we aren't forced to face and fix the problems that it has.
hmmmm...I think on the whole the british live longer than we do. All these stories are more fear-mongering. Isn't it odd how they show up just at this time. And also, how we are finding so many things that work on cancer....etc. hmmmm....just thinkin'.
Actually, Keith Richards nonwithstanding, they don't. And they haven't for a long time, which is something that this article didn't mention.
"Living longer" = More time to extract your life savings. Big Pharma and the nursing homes will grab what they can while you're on life support.
Nothing in these stats says anything about increased quality of life.
Are you talking about Britain as a whole or just England, because just when you think your article is speaking for England only, you include the rest of Britain. Statistics all over Britain ( Scotland and Wales and England!!!) are entirely different per country, so a little bit of clarification would be helpful rather than putting forth the old ignorance that Britain = England.
There is so much more to the story of greater longevity in US than Brits. The Brits are a very homogeneous population: 92% are caucasian Anglo-Saxsons. In the US 68% are Caucasian a mixture of English, Irish, German, from slavic countries, mediterranian descent, 22% Hispanic and 15% are African American, 5% Asian. The Brits have a 35% obesity rate, a significant contributor to chronic health conditions and cancer, where in the US: 30% whites are obese, 45% African Americans are obese, and 37% Hispanics are obese, 15% Asians are obese. In the US, health care related to chronic illness consumes 70% of all health care dollars. 80% of all health dollars are spent in the last year of life. Doesn't the above information give a better perspective on why the difference between the Brits and US seems so bizarre, better health early and yet dying sooner? You have to look at who is at risk for chronic illness and who is consuming thsoe health care dollars. Maybe then the it all makes more sense.
Duh!
Most of these comments are clueless. Americans have very unhealthy lifestyles. Thus there is a higher rate of illness. The higher rate of illness translates to more need for more treatment which translates to higher cost. Pretty hard to figure out. Oh, no... not that... its those crazy republicans causing all of the health problems. Democrats on the otherhand are only making things better, just like the mortgage fiasco.
Americans spend double what the Brits spend for healthcare. Older sicker Americans live longer. It would be nice if the article told us how much longer. Is it 5 years longer or is it 45 days longer. Unless you have that bit of info, the article does not tell us anything.
This is a "no brainer", of course! It costs so much more to treat the elderly. Let's just push them off into a corner and let them die! Look at the drain they're, already, causing on Medicare. Just let them die so we can keep more people on welfare. God knows, they need it more....They're younger! See how far that mentality gets you, Young America. There's no such thing as a stupid old man/woman. You don't get old by being stupid.