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In the midst of the Obamacare/Trumpcare debate, there's news from the Annals of Internal Medicine that Canadian Cystic Fibrosis (CF) patients live more than 10 years longer on average than patients with the same disease in the U.S. — universal healthcare plays a large role in that survival rate.
According to the CTV News story one factor is that Canadians with cystic fibrosis were told ten years earlier than Americans to adopt a high-calorie, high-fat diet, to take pancreatic enzyme supplements and vitamin supplements at every meal, and that Canadians were more likely to get lung transplants.
But one of the key differences between the two countries is that Canadians have universal, publicly funded health care while Americans do not.
In the study group, Canadian CF patients as a whole had a 77 per cent lower risk for death than U.S. patients with no health insurance or who health insurance status was unknown. They also had a 44 per cent lower death risk than Americans receiving continuous Medicaid or Medicare, and a 36 per cent lower risk than those receiving intermittent Medicaid or Medicare coverage.
Wikipedia summarizes:
Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine. Long-term issues include difficulty breathing and coughing up mucus as a result of frequent lung infections. Other signs and symptoms may include sinus infections, poor growth, fatty stool, clubbing of the fingers and toes, and infertility in males. Different people may have different degrees of symptoms.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Whoever on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:15AM (3 children)
But they told me on Fox News that the USA has the best healthcare system in the world!
Just think how much better it's going to be when they get rid of Obamacare. If only we had an affordable care act instead of that horrible Obamacare!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 16 2017, @09:10AM (2 children)
The way we will get a single payer system, most preferably a non-profit public system, is through the backlash of Trump making the absolutely horrid ACA, even crappier.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @12:53PM
The ACA, modified or not, is not the first problem.
It's the anything for profit payment system in the US.
This results in crazy, opaque pricing and a focus on doing stuff instead of healthy outcomes.
The first thing we need is one price for all instead of the used car salesman mentality.
The second thing is to eliminate the overhead of work, insurance, and for profit hospital and pharma in the middle of the payment path.
Then rethinking the monopoly of the AMA and pharma.
The only problem is if you think these take a big skim and do crazy things, wait until Washington is the path.
Canada evolved to the mentality of govt doing a good job. Washington is more the VA's plan.
The question is how to transition to something sane with all the entrenched interests pulling in the opposite direction.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spamalope on Thursday March 16 2017, @03:05PM
The plutocrats want to exploit everything for profit. The socialists want it to so un-affordable that it collapses and must be replaced (by socialized medicine). Look at that unity of purpose!
ACA's financial models were intentional lies. The phased introduction was designed to destroy the previous (also sucky) framework before the full weight of the cost lands to make it politically impossible to repeal the parts that make it doomed. (thus the 'modify' proposals)
Tell me, why did the ACA which Obama touted and fixing the exploitation of the health insurance companies result in record profits for them? He's not dumb, so that's not a mistake.
When it's a crime to post actual pricing information for health services, you know a free market is not intended. (why, I might have found out that I was billed $13K for a procedure the same office normally charged $2.5k for and call them out on it. I might overhear several doctors negotiating to price fix prosthetic in the county where I live.)
But by all means to fix anything like that. Just keep changing the shell game. Because the really important thing is that every time you change it lawyers get rich.