Better Health Care?
Here are a couple of interesting little posers for you. Why do you suppose it is that life expectancy in Canada is three years longer than it is in the land of the brave and the free? Why are Americans 42% more likely to have diabetes, 32% more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12% more likely to have arthritis than the sons and daughters of the true north strong and free?
Want a few more stats? 20.7% of Americans are obese compared to 15.3% of Canadians, and 13.6% of Americans do no exercise at all, while only 6.55 of Canadians are such slugs. All of these stats are in the results of a study just released by researchers at the Harvard Medical School.
Of course, any issue has its share of grey tones between the simple white and black, so there were negatives found in Canada and positives found in the States. It's just that the negatives reported for the States loom vary large indeed in comparison. For instance, 7% of all U.S. respondents in the study cite cost as an obstacle to their obtaining needed medical care, while the number for Canada was only 0.8%. As Doctor David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard points out, "These findings raise serious questions about what we're getting for the $2.1 trillion (Americans) are spending on health care this year." If America is spending almost twice what we do, then we must be doing something just exactly right, while they've got something really wrong going on there.
Want a few more stats? 20.7% of Americans are obese compared to 15.3% of Canadians, and 13.6% of Americans do no exercise at all, while only 6.55 of Canadians are such slugs. All of these stats are in the results of a study just released by researchers at the Harvard Medical School.
Of course, any issue has its share of grey tones between the simple white and black, so there were negatives found in Canada and positives found in the States. It's just that the negatives reported for the States loom vary large indeed in comparison. For instance, 7% of all U.S. respondents in the study cite cost as an obstacle to their obtaining needed medical care, while the number for Canada was only 0.8%. As Doctor David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard points out, "These findings raise serious questions about what we're getting for the $2.1 trillion (Americans) are spending on health care this year." If America is spending almost twice what we do, then we must be doing something just exactly right, while they've got something really wrong going on there.
1 Comments:
Americans have been outspending us per capita for the longest time. A lot of that expense however doesn't result in much improvement. Sometimes the cure is worse that the ailment. The money goes into the pockets of drug companies that are constantly pushing new cures for even newer diseases. Hopefully we won't be following the US anytime soon. Things like obesity can be handled with drugs ... but just as effective is eating habits and exercise.
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