Health care, US Style

Ezra Klein has a post up with a couple of interesting graphs on comparative health care statistics. Statistics from first, on prostate cancer, were used by a conservative blogger to prove that "socialized" health care is poorer than that in the US, arguing that you're twice as likely to die of prostate cancer in Germany than in the US. In fact, this is what the data show:




My guess is that the fact that a higher percentage of those diagnosed with prostate cancer die in Germany than in the US has to do more with the rate of testing than with the quality of the cure. After all, virtually the same percentage people die of the disease in each country. Probably, fewer people get regular PSA tests in Germany than in the US and, hence, fewer are diagnosed with it until they get really sick and are likely to die.

Actually, the chart suggests to me that the treatment for prostate cancer is pretty ineffective. If you assume that all people who are diagnosed with the disease get treated in some way, more than twice as many people are being treated in the US (per thousand males) than in Germany, but almost the same number die of the disease in both countries. That doesn't speak well for the efficacy of the treatment.

There are other studies I've seen that seem to confirm this. One I saw indicated that mortality rates among those diagnosed with prostate cancer were virtually identical regardless of whether they had prostate surgery or not. Apparently, it's the quality of the disease, not the fact of the disease, that is the principal determinant of its progression to early death.

None of this has much to do with the overall quality of health care from country to country.

Klein's second chart is more probative of the relative quality of health care in various countries. The "free market" system in the US certainly doesn't compare favorably on this score, even though we pay more than twice as much for health care per capita in this country than in any of the others studied.



And, a comparative study of middle-aged persons in the U.S. and the U.K. that was published yesterday provides pretty compelling evidence that the U.S. system is not working properly. This study controlled for virtually every variable you can think of; age, weight, sex, race, etc., etc. The results are quite startling:

CHICAGO (AP) -- White, middle-aged Americans -- even those who are rich -- are far less healthy than their peers in England, according to stunning new research that erases misconceptions and has experts scratching their heads.

Americans had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer -- findings that held true no matter what income or education level.

Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens.

So, let's cut the baloney about how the U.S. has the finest health care system in the world.