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Why you’re more likely to die of cancer in Europe than America
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoClickbait, but still interesting: > The first reason is somewhat of a statistical trick. Cancer is a disease of the elderly. An estimated 60 percent of cancer cases are diagnosed in people over 65; that age group accounts for 70 percent of cancer deaths. Put another way, the incidence of cancer in people above 65 is 11 times higher than in those below that age. Europe’s elderly population is considerably bigger as a proportion of the population: About 19 percent of the EU population is over 65, compared to around 15 percent in the U.S. That’s the top explanation for why the so-called crude mortality rate is so much lower in the U.S. > The reason the U.S.’s strong performance on cancer comes as a shock is because access to care in the country is notoriously unequal. But, it turns out, that's far less true of the elderly. > Age 65 is when virtually everyone in the U.S. qualifies for Medicare — America’s national, taxpayer-subsidized, government-run (dare we say socialized), comprehensive health insurance program. > More smoking means more cancer, making Europeans more likely to die of the disease.
- CogitoCogito 4y agoThe fact that the government pays for the (very expensive) care of the elderly, tells you everything you need to know about how "private" US healthcare truly is.
- CrazyCoder94 4y agoIt is also a fact that providing free healthcare has a big impact on people health, even more because this experiment is done inside US. It is a real argument for politics that are still against to provide free healthcare to everybody.
- landemva 4y agoIf people don't pay, then who pays the salaries? How will you make the nurses and janitors and doctors work for free?
- pipodeclown 4y agoThere are also hybrid systems that still allow for some market forces where you can for example choose your own health Insurer combined with an obligation of insurers to accept you no matter what and an obligation to offer everybody the same rate for the same plan (no pre-existing condition bullshit). I'm a bit biased of course being a Dutchie but I quite like our Dutch system. You end up with a very affordable system ( monthly pay for a basic plan below 100 euro/month, plans with a lot of add-ons are around 140-180/month. Combined with subsidies of around 80euro/month if you make below a certain threshold means healthcare is affordable for everybody and not a decision you need to way relative to other costs in your life, as it should be.
- nisegami 4y agoIt also tells you everything you need to know about who holds political power in the US.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoIf only the millennials understood how many Boomers and (soon) GenXers are in the workforce after age 55 only because they are waiting for Medicare to kick in. That promotion you want but can't get? Yeah, vote for reducing the Medicare age limit and it's yours.
- 988747 4y agoIt has been told before, but I'll repeat it: US has such high healthcare cost, because they are pushing boundaries of what's possible in medicine, both by inventing new drugs and innovating in surgery and other forms of treatment. Basically, US subsidizes healthcare for the rest of the world.
- pipodeclown 4y agoNo they're not, you don't get to have operating margins north of 25% for big pharma companies and get to claim high costs are the result of being at the forefront of medicine. Drug costs aren't calculated based on costs but on the basis of estimates of what the market will bear. The US has an inefficient healthcare system, inefficiencies being soaked through the profit margins of pharma companies participating in that system.