# Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare



## forummed84

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Anadolu Breast cancer clinic Turkey has 230 well-trained ISO certified oncologists and surgeons to provide high standard cancer treatment and surgery procedures. By the way Germany cancer clinics are also targeted medical destinations for cancer patients in western europe.

Best wishes.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

I just had breakfast with my sister.  She lives just outside of London.  She flies to New York City to visit her doctor, she also has a dentist in NYC.  

We have a friend who lives in Ireland who was diagnosed with a typically curable cancer.  At least curable in the US.  He believes the healthcare system he is living under will kill him.  Sadly he doesn't have the money to leave the country to get care, and his projected 6 month waiting time to see one of the few oncologists means his cancer will allow his cancer to spread and become terminal before it can even be treated.  Here in the USA his cancer would begin treatment in a matter of days and the remission rate is over 90% for what he has.

I know that a lot of English babies are now born in Belgium and there is a baby-birthing "vacation" industry that handles travel and hospital stays for parents who are having their babies delivered but don't want to give birth in an English hospital under the UK healthcare system.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

You guys just cant grasp the concept of studies vs individual experience ...................nevermind.  I give.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Show me a study that compares survival rates of cancer patients in the UK outliving cancer patients in the US.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

I have tried for years to explain the importance of scientific studies to show the effectiveness of a system.  I give.  Me and I guess two of my departed FF friends have posted hundreds of studies and all I get is the anecdotal little stories like in post #2.  If the collective here cannot understand science then there is abosolutely no reason to discuss details and results.  Did you ask me for studies about something you posted, almost amusing.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

I'm still waiting for you to post a comparative study of survival rates of patients diagnosed with cancer in the USA vs UK.


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Mel, is this kind of what you were looking for?


*-Yr. Cancer Survival Rates: US Dominates Europe     *




_Based  upon period survival data for 2000-02 from 47 European cancer  registries, 5-year survival rates were found to be higher in the U.S.  than in a European composite for cancer at all major sites (see table  above, click to enlarge). For men (all sites combined), 47.3% of  Europeans survived 5 years, compared to 66.3% of Americans. For women,  the contrast was 55.8% vs. 62.9%. The male survival difference was much  greater than the female primarily because of the very large difference  in survival rates from prostate cancer. _

_Thus,  the US appears to screen more vigorously for cancer than Europe and  people in the US who are diagnosed with cancer have higher 5-year  survival probabilities.
_
From a new NBER working paper "Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?" (abstract here and full paper here), by Univ. of Pennsylvania professors Samuel Preston and Jessica Ho. 


Thanks to Lee Coppock who pointed me to Marginal Revolution.

Originally posted at Carpe Diem.


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Several other studies show the UK much lower even than the European average.  

Moral:  If you live in the UK, don't get cancer.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

loco - YES, thanks, that is what I was waiting for Mak to post.

Of those that I have seen, every single STUDY, which is what Mak says are the valid things to consider, of cancer survival rates show that the UK lags the USA by significant margins.  

Still, Mak suggests that our health care is far inferior to the type of UHC offered in nations like the UK.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

From other sources:  http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/se...l-rates-in-usa-better-than-europe-and-canada/
Canada is the ideal of single payer health care:

Canada’s system of national health insurance is often cited as a model for the United States.  But an analysis of 2001 to 2003 data by June O’Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and economist David O’Neill, found that overall cancer survival rates are higher in the United States than in Canada: 

For women, the average survival rate for all cancers is 61 percent in the United States, compared to 58 percent in Canada.
For men, the average survival rate for all cancers is 57 percent in the United States, compared to 53 percent in Canada.
And further
It is often claimed that people have better access to preventive screenings in universal health care systems. But despite the large number of uninsured, cancer patients in the United States are most likely to be screened regularly, and once diagnosed, have the fastest access to treatment. For example, a Commonwealth Fund report showed that women in the United States were more likely to get a PAP test for cervical cancer every two years than women in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Great Britain, where health insurance is guaranteed by the government.

* In the United States, 85 percent of women aged 25 to 64 years have regular PAP smears, compared with 58 percent in Great Britain.
* The same is true for mammograms; in the United States, 84 percent of women aged 50 to 64 years get them regularly — a higher percentage than in Australia, Canada or New Zealand, and far higher than the 63 percent of British women.​
OH, and this little tid bit:  http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596



> *Conclusion. *  International comparisons establish that the most important factors in cancer survival are early diagnosis, time to treatment and access to the most effective drugs.  Some uninsured cancer patients in the United States encounter problems with timely treatment and access, but a far larger proportion of cancer patients in Europe face these troubles.  *No country on the globe does as good a job overall as the United States. * Thus, the U.S. government should focus on ensuring that all cancer patients receive timely care, rather than radically overhauling the current system.


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

But then there is this one:


> *Fact No. 1:  Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.*[1]  Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.  Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway.  The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
> 
> *Fact No. 2:  Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.*[2]  Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.
> 
> *Fact No. 3:  Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.*[3]  Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.  By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
> 
> *Fact No. 4:  Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians*.[4]  Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:
> Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
> Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
> More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
> Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).​
> *Fact No. 5:  Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.  *Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).  Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor."[5]
> 
> *Fact No. 6:  Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K.*  Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.[6]  All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.[7]  In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.[8]
> 
> *Fact No. 7:  People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.*   More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding."[9]
> 
> *Fact No. 8:  Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. * When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).[10]
> 
> *Fact No. 9:  Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K.*  Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade.[11]  [See the table.]  The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain.  The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.[12]
> 
> *Fact No. 10:  Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.*[13]  The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country.[14]  Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined.[15]  In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize.   Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.[16]  [See the table.]
> 
> *Conclusion.*  Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.


Please follow the link for the footnotes that link to various studies and to read the complete article => http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649


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## joec

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Really? Why do I find this hard to believe? I guess if you have health insurance you can get checked regularly, if not they TS.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Havent we discussed this before?  I got kinda busy at work so I really havent had much time to work on it.  But I have never used a reference that solitics donations.  And do you really wanna rate an entire healthcare system on the 5 year survvival rate of a few selected cancers? Just askin, right now dinner is ready.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

We do spend more per captia for healthcare.  Life expectancy is a hard number too.  These facts dont change.  We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world and dont live long enough to get our money's worth.  Saying life expectancy is not due to the medical is kinda cute, but not true.

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk...careful-when-comparing-us-and-uk-cancer-care/

 We need to be careful when comparing US and UK cancer care

The US healthcare system is being reformed
It’s often said that where the US goes, we Brits will follow – and that’s certainly been true over the last week or so.

America is in the middle of a lengthy, bitter and at times bizarre debate, as President Obama tries to reform the US healthcare system. And as the debate has spilled over into the British media, focus has fixed on the relative pros and cons of our NHS.

As well as becoming the focus of newspaper columns and radio phone-ins, the debate has also set the internet alight, with commentators on both sides feeling compelled to ‘have their say’, as exemplified on social microblogging site Twitter.

Given that both the US and the UK economies are in recession, and both countries are facing spiralling healthcare costs as their populations age, it’s absolutely right that we have a proper and informed debate about how best to provide healthcare.

Cancer is a key area of concern for healthcare providers, not least because alongside demographic and economic problems, new-generation cancer treatments tend to be more expensive than their forerunners.

But over the last week, facts and figures about UK cancer care have been taken out of context on several occasions, and used to make questionable points about the NHS. So let’s set the record straight.


‘Breast cancer kills more frequently in the UK’


One stat that we were asked to comment on  is a statistic comparing breast cancer death rates in the two countries:

Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain …breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.

We don’t know where this figure has come from. However, according to GLOBOCAN – an international comparison carried out in 2002 and probably the most recent comparable figures, the age-standardised figures are 24 deaths per 100,000 Britons, and 19 per 100,000 Americans – not nearly so dramatic a difference.

‘Fewer prostate cancer patients survive five years’

Another fact that has been widely quoted relates to prostate cancer. As the Guardian wrote:

A Lancet Oncology global study last year found that 91.9 per cent of Americans with the disease were still alive after five years compared to just 51.1 per cent in the UK.

On the face of it, these figures are indeed valid. They come from the CONCORD study, which we helped fund, and compared 5-year survival rates between many different countries.

But just comparing the US and the UK, and saying that the bigger number is ‘better’, misses a deeper truth.

As we’ve written before, the US uses the PSA blood test far more widely than we do in the UK – despite questions over how effective it is at spotting cancers that would actually kill, as opposed to those that cause no symptoms.

As a result, the USA has one of the *highest recorded rates of prostate cancer in the world.*So although it’s undoubtedly ‘better’ at spotting prostate cancers, it’s also fair to say that some of these Americans will never die from their disease.

This ‘overdiagnosis’ inflates the survival statistics, at the expense of ‘overtreating’ men – which is expensive and can cause long-term side effects (which can need further treatment).

So you might just as well argue that the ‘91 per cent’ survival figure could be due to a system that overdiagnoses and overtreats prostate cancer, as opposed to saying our 51 per cent stat is due to poor healthcare in the UK. Bigger is not always better.

Finally, if you look at UK survival rates for early stage prostate cancer, a different picture emerges – men in the *UK have a 98.6 per cent five-year survival *rate. Clearly, whatever controversies surround the diagnosis of the disease, the NHS is doing a pretty good job of managing it when it’s detected early.

‘UK cancer patients find it harder to see an oncologist’

According to the Mirror, some US anti-reform adverts have been stating that 40 per cent of UK cancer patients “are never able to see an oncologist”. This figure originates from a report titled “Review of the pattern of cancer services in England and Wales” published by the Association of Cancer Physicians in 1994 – years before the NHS Cancer Plan and the Cancer Reform Strategy were put in place.

But things have improved hugely since 1994, thanks to the priority the UK government has placed on cancer care. Nowadays, the vast majority of cancer patients in the UK see a specialist within two weeks.

The dangers of international comparison

Another big difference between UK and US cancer statistics is that in the UK, every single cancer diagnosis and death is registered nationally. In the US there is not nearly such complete data. So even comparing data that’s been properly standardised doesn’t give the whole picture – as we mentioned when discussing the EUROCARE european data a while back.

But it’s only valid to compare international statistics, of any sort, if you compare like with like – and this is extremely difficult to do between different populations, especially when the nature of the data is fundamentally different.

We’re not saying the NHS is perfect. There’s a long way to go with many aspects of cancer care – early diagnosis, access to treatment, and end of life care, to name a few. But the picture that’s currently being painted in some quarters is very different from the reality.

And that reality is a picture where UK death rates from all cancers have fallen by almost 20 per cent in the last 40 years, and where overall five-year survival figures have doubled over the last 30.

Death rates for three of the most common cancers – breast, bowel and male lung cancer – have all dropped to their lowest levels in 40 years. And since the NHS was founded 60 years ago, survival for breast and bowel cancers has more than doubled.

The patient perspective


As a final note, the statistics we’ve discussed in this post are, by their very nature, averages.

But when you’re diagnosed with cancer, doctors generally give you statistics that are more relevant to the type or stage of disease you yourself have – and these may be different from those above.

If you are a cancer patient, or know someone who is, and you have question about cancer, its treatment or care, have a look at our patient information website CancerHelp UK, or telephone our Information Nurses on freephone 0808 800 4040.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Now wanna talk about Canada?


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## Melensdad

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



joec said:


> Really? Why do I find this hard to believe? I guess if you have health insurance you can get checked regularly, if not they TS.


Joe, that is not true.  In fact if you read what was posted in the study it specifically said it included ALL Americans even those without insurance. 




mak2 said:


> Now wanna talk about Canada?


Hmmm. . . you posted an EDITORIAL but I posted STUDIES.  You are the one who constantly states that STUDIES are valid.


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## jpr62902

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Actually, let's stay on this UK thing for a bit.

First, your link is a blog article.  Melensdad posted a heavily footnoted article that you refered to as having sources that solicit donations.  What sources are those?

Second, the UK blog article plays funny with the numbers.  26 breast cancer deaths per 100,000 Britons compared to 19 breast cancer deaths per 100,000 Americans can still mean the same thing as the Lancet Cancer survival study.

Third, the blog article says early detection prostate cancer survival rates in the UK are 98.6%.  Isn't early detection part of the problem?  The blog article also refers to US prostate cancer survival numbers as inflated because some prostate cancers don't cause "symptoms," and therefore the US overtests for prostate cancer.  Who cares about symptoms?  If I get prostate cancer, I want it detected early, and I don't want prostate cancer to kill me.


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Mak, having worked with ALE statistics, I see zero reason to believe they show anythng other than a statistical likelihood of death.  Such statistics are heavily influenced by cultural memes.  For instance, it is statistically very unlikely for a Frenchman living in France to die of cardiac arrest caused by clogged arteries. The reason?  The french drink a large of red wine with their meals, a cultural meme which is actively discouraged in the US.
To use ALE as any form of validation for medical care of any type, you have to compare things like cancer survival rates and wait times for surgeries.
Use of ALE without factoring in the cultural differences, and the varying laws in different countries makes ALE comparison totally irrelevant.


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## EastTexFrank

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



loboloco said:


> Use of ALE without factoring in the cultural differences, and the varying laws in different countries makes ALE comparison totally irrelevant.



It won't make any difference to Mak.  Don't confuse him with facts.  

Let's all move on.


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## jpr62902

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



EastTexFrank said:


> It won't make any difference to Mak. Don't confuse him with facts.
> 
> Let's all move on.


 
Mak posts facts too, Frank.  I'm just not sure I agree with the conclusions from those facts.


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## pirate_girl

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

<sitting on hands so they don't reach the keyboard>



Good Gawd!!


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## jpr62902

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



pirate_girl said:


> <sitting on hands so they don't reach the keyboard>
> 
> 
> 
> Good Gawd!!


 
Well good gollie, Lollie.  You're a nurse in Ohio who had lived in the UK for how long?

I look forward to your comments here!  Post up!!


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## pirate_girl

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

5 years.
Nahh.. I've already spoken on this issue too many times.
I think it's become like beating a dead horse at this point.
Some of us have already resolved our stance, but find ourselves amused at seeing it brought up time and again.


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## jpr62902

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



pirate_girl said:


> 5 years.
> Nahh.. I've already spoken on this issue too many times.
> I think it's become like beating a dead horse at this point.
> Some of us have already resolved our stance, but find ourselves amused at seeing it brought up time and again.


 
Yes, but if you beat a dead horse in the UK versus here, how much longer and cheaper does that horse stay dead in the UK?


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## fogtender

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



Melensdad said:


> I'm still waiting for you to post a comparative study of survival rates of patients diagnosed with cancer in the USA vs UK.


 
I'm one in the U.S. column under the Prostate Cancer cures!


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## fogtender

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



pirate_girl said:


> <sitting on hands so they don't reach the keyboard>
> 
> 
> 
> Good Gawd!!


 
Wow, you must be a good typer with your feet...!


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## pirate_girl

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



fogtender said:


> Wow, you must be a good typer with your feet...!


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## Danang Sailor

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



fogtender said:


> I'm one in the U.S. column under the Prostate Cancer cures!



Me too!   And I'm approaching that vaunted "five-year-survival" point.




pirate_girl said:


> 5 years.
> Nahh.. I've already spoken on this issue too many times.
> I think it's become like beating a dead horse at this point.
> Some of us have already resolved our stance, but find ourselves amused at seeing it brought up time and again.



PG:  For those of us who haven't been here forever, can you post a quick 2-3 sentence synopsis?   Some of us really would appreciate the perspective of a medical professional who has worked both side of the Atlantic.


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## fogtender

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



Danang Sailor said:


> Me too!  And I'm approaching that vaunted "five-year-survival" point.


 
Well it has been a few years since the diagnosis and about 18 months since the radiation treatments were completed.  All looks good so far, but there is a host of other oddities to get us!

Funny when Palin was running for VP, the left constantly hammered on her...   Then when ObamaCare got underway, she talked about the Death Panels rating if you will be treated or not, and again the Left hammered on her, and now that it has passed.... It is general knowledge that those are going to be in effect.


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## pirate_girl

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



Danang Sailor said:


> PG:  For those of us who haven't been here forever, can you post a quick 2-3 sentence synopsis?   Some of us really would appreciate the perspective of a medical professional who has worked both side of the Atlantic.


Actually dear, while I was living across the pond, I myself never had much of a problem with the National Health Service, personally.
Maybe I was lucky.

I did have friends who lost family members and even some patients died because of the waiting lists for surgeries and treatments that would have been taken care of in days or weeks here in America.

I cannot imagine how a system similar would ever work in this country.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

I understand exaclty why you must throw out life expectancy and cost per citizen, these are hard fact that cannot be manipulated.  The insistanance that healthcare systems and life expectancy are not directly related defies logic, but ignore it if you want.  

In great Britian there are 25 deaths per 100000 and 19 per hundred thousand in US due to breast cancer according to the doctor in hte blog.  The point is this small a variation can exist between states and regions in US or any healthcare system.  

"But just comparing the US and the UK, and saying that the bigger number is ‘better’, misses a deeper truth.

As we’ve written before, the US uses the* PSA blood test far more widely *than we do in the UK – despite questions over how *effective it is at spotting cancers that would actually kill, as opposed to those that cause no symptoms.*As a result, the USA has one of the highest recorded rates of prostate cancer in the world.So although it’s undoubtedly ‘better’ at spotting prostate cancers, it’s also fair to say that some of these Americans will never die from their disease.

This ‘*overdiagnosis’ inflates the survival statistics,* at the expense of ‘overtreating’ men – which is expensive and can cause long-term side effects (which can need further treatment).

So you might just as well argue that the* ‘91 per cent’ survival figure could be due to a system that overdiagnoses and overtreats prostate cancer*, as opposed to saying our 51 per cent stat is due to poor healthcare in the UK. Bigger is not always better.

Finally, if you look at UK survival rates for early stage prostate cancer, a different picture emerges – men in the* UK have a 98.6 per cent five-year survival rate*. Clearly, whatever controversies surround the diagnosis of the disease, the NHS is doing a pretty good job of managing it when it’s detected early.

I included this doctors blog because I thought he explained it in a simple manner we could all understand.  If you dont understand about the PSA and inflation of survival statistics I will provide more information late, suffice it for now to PSA is high profit, high false postiive and may or may not be beneficial to a system as a whole and definately costs a lot of money.

I have been pretty busy because it is midterm, but I do appreciate those of you who do include actual studites and dont resort to name calling immediately, this is really how we discuss topic and learn from each other.  Well of course I dont know anything, but.......... I will get back to this tonight.


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## jimbo

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Mak, if this is supposed to clear something up, it didn't for me.
First, this appears to have been written by someone in UK, not here, do you have a source?
Second, the author states that 19 against 25 is a small amount (referring to breast cancer).  19 against 25 is 20%, not a small number if you are one of the 6.
Referring to prostate cancer, author seems to make the point that 91% against 51%, the 91 being due to overdiagnosis, and the 51 due to poor health care.

If you would provide a source, I will look it up and see if I can figure it out.


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## EastTexFrank

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



pirate_girl said:


> 5 years.
> Nahh.. I've already spoken on this issue too many times.
> I think it's become like beating a dead horse at this point.
> Some of us have already resolved our stance, but find ourselves amused at seeing it brought up time and again.



I agree with PG.  I spent 35 years under the British National Health System and I've tried time and again to explain what is good and what is bad about it but at this point I don't have a stick or a dead horse.


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Mak, to call ALE a fact is to show that you have no knowledge of what ALE actually is.
ALE is a statistical probability field based on changing value fields.  Therefore, it can't be 'fact'.  If any variable changes, the field probability changes.
To give an example, if 'death by misadventure' is removed, ALE jumps upward.  The problem is, how do you calculate such deaths before they occur?  Another variable is 'war deaths'.  Some countries actually prohibit the inclusion for national statistical purposes such deaths.  The US does not, but the last reliable 'war death' probability variables come from the Vietnam war.
Another little known, but quite true oddity is that ALE is made at the beginning of a generation, and thus cannot allow for advances in medicine, or changes in lifestyle.
It is true that there are ALE calculators used for those who have already lived past the 'danger years', but they are also only statistical probability.  'Danger years' are those below 30, by the way.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

War deaths, really?


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*



mak2 said:


> War deaths, really?


Yes, Mak, for ALE to be even close to accurate, all known causation's of death must be calculated.  This includes 'war deaths'.  Also known as combat losses and collateral damages.


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

OK lobo.  Lets let this go.  But the figures teh CIA are using are as of 2011, damn my dogs just knocked something big over upstairs.  Last time I thought that happened it was an earthquake.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html


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## mak2

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

just a one pound bag of m&m reeses pieces.  Sure made a crashing sound.


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## loboloco

*Re: Don't get Cancer in the UK ~ what I fear about ObamaCare*

Yeah, dogs and candy can sound like a buffalo herd.  Unfortunately, as I have outlined, such figures are only probabilities.  Since ALE is actually designed for actuarial purposes, it is a)somewhat pessimistic in its projections, and b) has never known to be accurate within 5 years.
Oh, and you can, using an ALE calculator, figure your own approximate, ALE.  Mine is currently between 89-98 years.  A figure I earnestly hope I won't have to make.


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