In the last few years, my dear companion, Sandra Roberts, 72, has had her gall bladder removed, a rotator cuff surgically repaired and been hospitalized more times than I can count for congestive obstructive pulmonary disorder, commonly referred to as COPD, respiratory affliction that affects her breathing. She'd be the first to tell you that she is pleased with the care she receives.
“American Health care is excellent," she said, but added the obvious and not so obvious:"It needs reform in the area of costs and those factors that is making it unattractive for our young people to go into medicine.
Many people try to downgrade the quality of American Medicine. The basis of their down grading usually consist of three main points:
* First, it is pointed out that life expectancy in America is not as long as in some other countries.
* Second, it is asserted that infant mortality in America is higher than in some other countries.
* Third it is pointed out that some rating systems rate American health care way behind some other countries.
In response it should be pointed out that American longevity is affected by things that have absolutely nothing to do with our medical care.
Robert Ohsfeldt of Texas A&M and John Schneider of the University of Iowa concluded that if you allow for mortality due to auto accidents and murders, American longevity is better than in any other Western country. Consider these telling statistics:
* America has 14.24 auto fatalities per 100,000 people compared to Canada ’s 9.25, France ’s 7.4 and Germany ’s 6.19.
* America has a homicide rate of 5.9 per 100,000 people compared with Canada ’s 1.9, France ’s 1.64 and Germany ’s .98.
Furthermore, our sedentary lifestyle keeps our average life expectancy from being even longer.
Infant mortality data are heavily dependent on how you count live births. In America, any baby that is alive at birth is counted as a live birth no matter how slim his chances may be of staying alive due to low birth weight, being premature or other serious health problems such as genetic malformations. In some of the other countries, a baby must meet “certain minimum standards of being viable” before he is considered a live birth.
For example, in Switzerland, a baby must be at least 30 centimeters long at birth to be considered alive. In France and Belgium, babies born at less than 26 weeks are automatically registered as dead. In America, we save premature babies who are not even counted as live births in other countries.
Finally, when it comes to rating medical systems the reader must study the criteria used in judging before reaching any conclusions whatsoever.
For example, according to some criteria, a health system is marked down considerably if it is not a government run health system.
If you have a serious medical problem, you are more likely to be cured here than just about anywhere else in the world. There may be a few hospitals in the world that are better at few selected specialties than in America, but over all we are the best.
You can bet your life on it.