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Appalbarry [soylentnews.org] writes:

In the midst of the Obamacare/Trumpcare debate, there's news from the Annals of Internal Medicine [annals.org] that Canadian CF patients live more than 10 years longer on average than patients with the same disease in the U.S. Universal healthcare plays large role in that survival rate.

According to the CTV News story [ctvnews.ca] 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.

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