August 21, 2007

Today, the London Telegraph runs yet another story on the United Kingdom's poor cancer survival rates:

Cancer survival rates in Britain are among the lowest in Europe, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the issue yet produced.

Survival rates are based on the number of patients who are alive five years after diagnosis and researchers found that, for women, England was the fifth worst in a league of 22 countries. Scotland came bottom. Cancer experts blamed late diagnosis and long waiting lists.

And which country tops the list in survival rates? Do you even need one guess? The U.S.

A second cited article notes that "countries that spent the most on health per capita per year had better survival rates."

More spending, of course, isn't always the answer. But besides leading the world in cancer survival rates, the U.S. also produces the lion's share of medical innovations on which other countries "free ride" through price controls and other restrictions.

So if the U.S. embraced market restrictions used in many other countries - like the U.K. and Germany, for instance - not only would U.S. health care innovation decline, but global health care innovation would falter.

Posted by Paul Howard at August 21, 2007 06:36 PM

Comments

Post a comment