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Sicko: Does Michael Moore Want More People to Die?
By Kyle | September 13, 2007
In an eloquent Wall Street Journal piece, John Stossel points out that in the US, you have a much better chance of surviving breast cancer than in socialized-meds countries. (In the US, 63 percent of women and 66 percent of men survive at least five years after being diagnosed with cancer. The rates in Britain are 53 and 45.)
Says Stossel:
When government is in charge of health care, the result is not that everyone gets access to experimental treatments, but that people get less of the care that is absolutely necessary. At any given time, just under a million Canadians are on waiting lists to receive care, and one in eight British patients must wait more than a year for hospital treatment. Canadian Karen Jepp, who gave birth to quadruplets last month, had to fly to Montana for the delivery: neonatal units in her own country had no room.
Rationing in Britain is so severe that one hospital recently tried saving money by not changing bed-sheets between patients. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over, British papers report. The wait for an appointment with a dentist is so long that people are using pliers to pull out their own rotting teeth.
Patients in countries with government-run health care can’t get timely access to many basic medical treatments, never mind experimental treatments. That’s why, if you suffer from cancer, you’re better off in the U.S., which is home to the newest treatments and where patients have access to the best diagnostic equipment. People diagnosed with cancer in America have a better chance of living a full life than people in countries with socialized systems. Among women diagnosed with breast cancer, only one-quarter die in the U.S., compared to one-third in France and nearly half in the United Kingdom.
Topics: Movies, News, Politics |
September 14th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
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