Re: Reintroducing myself.

In article <2o0rn3dgqleb7ogqiir4ufubfdasij3hkl@xxxxxxx>,
Alma Hromic Deckert <anghara@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Apparently we live i in the kind of country where 1% of the patients
are able to have MRIs and PET scans on demand, another maybe 5% is
able to afford hospitalization when it is necessary, while the rest go
to emergency rooms for basic medical attention and close their eyes
and hope for the best if the verdict is cancer or something long-term
for which the financial burden outweighs the benefits of survival.

Except that cancer survival rates are substantially higher in the U.S.
than in Europe. A little googling found:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2296368.ece

"Europe's survival rates are lower than in the US, where 66.3 per cent
of men and 62.9 per cent of women survive for five years, compared with
47.3 per cent of European men and 55.8 per cent of women. These figures
may represent earlier diagnosis."

Precisely the opposite of what your argument implies.

The article says that U.K. rates are worse than any of the European
countries except the ones in Eastern Europe, but doesn't give actual
figures. Another source I found online gives the figures as 63%/53%
U.S./U.K. for women, 66/45 for men.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers about how many people
can afford what from. Most people in the U.S. are insured, and a large
minority of the ones who aren't are from the higher, not the lower, half
of the income distribution. Certainly there are people in the situation
you describe, but they aren't most of the population or anything close.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

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