Just the Facts!

The World Health Org. (WHO) is an arm of the United Nations, in yesterday's post I offered up their job description. In a nutshell they are part of the international movement to unite everyone under one rule, one currency, one world order. A combine of socialist nations. Pro universal health care supporters often quote studies by WHO to argue health care in the USA is in disarray. Let's look at the facts, here is the rankings as listed by WHO, for the best in health care by nation....

Rank Country

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America

I couldn't help but notice we were 37th! Isn't it funny the nation that supplies the world with the greatest amount of innovations in the health care field is 37th? Let's look at why..

...Why do we need to rank countries according to the performance of their health services? Presumably, an important objective is to see what we can learn from "the best", using them as points of reference on the road to better health. A very important element in the WHO ranking, however, is the credibility of the indicators of performance that it uses. It is therefore important to know how the ranking was developed, the assumptions behind the preparation of the indicators used in the ranking, and the consequences for health policy of choosing one indicator versus another.
Let us start with the nature of the indicators. The WHO report develops three types of indicators. The first is related to the effectiveness of the health-care system (mainly medical care plus traditional public-health services) in reducing mortality and morbidity. The second is related to the responsiveness of the system to the user, understanding responsiveness as the ability to protect the user's dignity; to provide confidentiality and autonomy; to provide care promptly with high-quality amenities; to provide access to social support; and to ensure a choice of provider. And the third type of indicator is related to the fairness of the system, measured by the degree of progressiveness in the funding of health care.

One of the leading factors used it mortality, looking at that list how many of those countries ahead of the US citizens own cars? The fifth biggest killer of US citizen's is the automobile, and related accidents. Fewer cars = fewer auto deaths? Let's look at the stats for deaths in the USA...

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
Car Crash Stats: There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes.


How about the #1 killer in the USA? Heart disease! Since most of the nations ranked ahead of us don't have vehicles would it be safe to assume they walk to their destination a lot? This creates a healthier lifestyle, we are an obese nation. How many Burger Kings, etc do you think are available to the population of say, San Marino, Malta, or Andorra? Would it be a stretch to say they've not been subject to desserts like "Death by chocolate?' The majority of the European Union live at or below the USA's poverty level financially. Could we surmise they eat less crap as they can't afford to do so? What about drug abuse? Since they don't have a large discretionary income to spend on prescription or any other type of drug abuse. Alcohol abuse accounts for 85,000 deaths annually in America. Can the people of Luxembourg afford to spend money they use to feed themselves on alcohol?

The facts are lifestyle is the cause of our lower ranking, not our health care system. Well there is one other factor they omit,infant death rate. We consider a live birth any indication of life. Most of those countries have a weight or other limiting issue. We also dedicate ourselves to saving low birth weight children as we have advanced technology. We use fertility drugs more often promoting multiple births of low weight, high risk baby's. Many of those countries abort high risk pregnancies, we do not. So the USA has a skewed number in that area affecting the statistics.

I know this is a long post but I want you armed with the facts when you face this argument. We are going to have to defend health care if we wish to keep it.

Excuses? Absolutely! Fixable? Not with universal health care!

God Bless
Capt. Bill