Tough Decisions

The US healthcare debate seems to have sparked even more debates in countries that have socialized medicine - such as England(Britain) and Canada. The debate has been there for eons, but it seems louder and stronger now. It's a pretty tough mess to sort out. This morning the Drudge report listed an article about a hospital is Staffordshire, England that is under investigation for the possible unnecessary deaths of between 400 and 1200 patients between 2005 and 2008. But what interested me most was reading through the comments (so far there are over 10 pages of reader comments). People are split, and it's tough to make future decisions based on what citizens want when it is so divided. What is the best course of action? All I can think is 'socialized medicine will only work as long as there are dollars to support it'. What happens when money is running low, if something happens where tons of people are out of work and businesses are closing? Where will the tax dollars come from to support these socialized systems? The whole thing could come crashing down, that's what concerns me. And if there is nothing in place to back it up (ie a proper two tier system where people could choose to get private insurance for basic health care).... well... then what??? I heard on several radio and tv broadcasts recently that within 5 years, 20% of Britains adults will have never worked a single day of their lives to date. Twenty Percent! That is a heck of a lot of people receiving aid, getting health care, getting their homes and food paid for - who have never put a pence of money into the tax system to help support it. Yikes.

Something else I have been thinking about --- I have heard several politicians in the US claiming that every year, 45,000 people die in the US because they do not have health care. I cannot find a good stat on that but will put it in here if I find it. I don't know if that truly means they died BECAUSE they don't have health care, or if they happened to die AND they don't have health care. I don't know what they died from (car accident, terminal disease, etc) so I don't know how to judge if they died BECAUSE of lack of health care or if that is just a twisted statistic. But what I do know is that a heck of a lot of people die each year who DO have health care. Should we then twist the statistic to say 'Look! Over 2 million people die each year in the US because they HAVE health care'? Seriously, think about it.

The Centers for Disease Control website updated it's death stats on Dec 31, 2009 and you can find it HERE. But here is a quick rundown of some stats they reported:

• Number of deaths: 2,426,264
• Death rate: 810.4 deaths per 100,000 population
• Life expectancy: 77.7years
• Infant Mortality rate: 6.69 deaths per 1,000 live births
  

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
• Septicemia: 34,234

So, while looking at that list, and throwing in the statistic being used by politicians and TV personalities lately, you can see that '45,000 deaths per year who don't have health care' would fall second last in the top causes of death list, and is a small fraction of the total deaths per year. I'm not trying to belittle the lives of those who do not have health care, but I do not like it when I see people throwing statistics around in order to try to better their cause. Almost 3 times as many people die from accidents. Over half a million people die each year from heart disease. Over half a million people die from cancer. Perhaps if someone REALLY wants to do something about the number of deaths in the US, they should concentrate on the top killers and try to ensure that the hospitals and science centers will have enough money to keep combating these illnesses, instead of trying to tie even more tax dollars down into a system that seems to suck the life out of so many other countries.

In a quick comparison, Stats Canada lists our deaths at 242,863 for the last fiscal year (July 1 to June 30 2008/09). Keeping in mind that Canada has about 10% of the population of the United States, it puts our death rate at almost an identical % of population (242, 626). Our top killers are heart disease and cancer as well. Shouldn't we have a BETTER death rate if we have socialized medicine? Afterall, all of our citizens can get health care at any time from any place (scratch that, you have to go through the channels, can't just show up at a specialist's office, but I digress)... So the US people that are throwing around this '45,000 people a year die because they do not have life insurance' figure must not really look around at other countries to check out their mortality rates and causes either. THAT is what drives me crazy.

At the end of the day, even Canada's socialized health care system does not improve on the mortality rate. We have 10% of the population, and 10% of their mortality rate. So let's just drop that 45,000 statistic, it does not accomplish ANYTHING. Over 2 million people die each year in the US who DO have health insurance.... so um.... what should be done about THAT statistic?

Eh?! Perhaps that is something Larry King could have asked Bill Maher last week. Maher is the latest person I heard use the 45,000 stat.