The U.S. has among the worst health statistics of all rich nations

[Egalitarian Zetetic]

http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/L-healthcare.htm

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Sharp readers will notice that the last chart may mean different things to different people. Conservatives think the U.S. health care system needs reform because there is too much government involvement in health care; liberals because there is not enough.

So let's clarify this statistic with a few others. Americans are the most dissatisfied with the quality and quantity of their health care. Of the 10 largest industrialized nations, the U.S. ranked dead last in health care satisfaction, with an approval rating of only 11 percent. (3) There's no putting a positive spin on this statistic; any president with such a low approval rating would be impeached!



Nor is America's international reputation in health care as high as many Americans boast it to be. "Ask anyone you know from a foreign country... which country is the envy of the world when it comes to health care," Rush Limbaugh wrote in See, I Told You So. But according to a Gallup poll published by the Toronto Star, only 2 percent of all Canadians believe that the U.S. has a better health care system than their own. (5)
...
Perhaps the greatest reason why Europeans are healthier than Americans is because they have reduced poverty, especially child poverty. The link between poverty and poorer health has long been proven. One survey reviewed more than 30 other studies on the relationship between class and health, and found that "class influences one's chances of staying alive. Almost without exception, the evidence shows that classes differ on mortality rates." (7) The American Journal of Epidemiology states that "a vast body of evidence has shown consistently that those in the lower classes have higher mortality, morbidity and disability rates" and these "are in part due to inadequate medical care services as well as to the impact of a toxic and hazardous physical environment." (8)

[Senior citizen]

1. A reversal of fortune

could leave a rightie dying in the street for lack of insurance, and they'd still say, "We have the best health care system in the world." Once they latch onto a slogan, neither facts, nor experience, nor revelation from above can change it.

[SharonAnn]

2. Yep, like the Republican woman who told me yesterday that

issues about the environment would be different after the election. Thinking that she was a Republican, I asked her what she was looking for. She said that * was having to kowtow to all these corporations right now in order to get the funding to get re-elected. After the election, when he no longer had to placate them, he would be free to concentrate on the things that real Americans needed like a clean and healthy environment.

Bad corporation! Making * do bad things to the environment. Gosh, am i supposed to hope he gets re-elected? I don't think so.

Another friend said, after hearing this story, that a psychologist would diagnose someone who was so out of touch with reality as having a severe psychosis.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. The CIA Factbook

includes basic health statistics for each country. A couple years ago I looked up things like life expectancy and infant mortality for Canada, US, Cuba and US-liberated Grenada, and compared them to cost per capita for health care. Canada paid about half as much as the US and was about 20% better by the numbers, Cuba paid 10% the cost and had very slightly inferior numbers, and Grenada, with a per capita income close to Cuba, was appalling.

[Djinn]

4. I work in the Australian public health system

and while it's FAR from perfect atleast here no-one goes without neccesary surgery because of a lack of insurance - the current right wing government even had to bribe people (with a bit of fear mongering thrown in for good measure) with tax payers money to take up private health insurance because hardly anyone bothered with it.

The theory was that the more people who have private insurance the more money can be spent on services in the public system - only problem is the insurance companies keep putting premiums and gap payments up so people tend to use the public system even if they HAVE insurance.

It amazes me that so many Americans can espouse the "best country in the world" nonsense when hardly any of them have ever been anywhere else.

[Egalitarian Zetetic]

5. even so called liberals here, oppose the universal healthcare and

refer to it as "socialised medicine" ah well those who get sick must deserve it in thier minds.

Trust me as someone who ahs traveled the world. America is NOT the best, the people you hear say that hardly ever leave. And they tend to be White americans, or minorities with money