The U.S. Ranks High In Some Health Care Measures

See Where U.S. Health Care Ranks Number One: Isn't 'responsiveness' what medicine is all about? by MARK B. CONSTANTIAN in the WSJ, 1-8-2010 page A15.

"The scale is heavily subjective: The WHO believes that we could have done better because we do not have universal coverage. What apparently does not matter is that our population has universal access because most physicians treat indigent patients without charge and accept Medicare and Medicaid payments, which do not even cover overhead expenses. The WHO does rank the U.S. No. 1 of 191 countries for "responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient.""

"...cardiac deaths in the U.S. have fallen by two-thirds over the past 50 years. Polio has been virtually eradicated. Childhood leukemia has a high cure rate. Eight of the top 10 medical advances in the past 20 years were developed or had roots in the U.S."

"Eight of the 10 top-selling drugs in the world were developed by U.S. companies. The U.S. has some of the highest breast, colon and prostate cancer survival rates in the world."

"We have the shortest waiting time for nonemergency surgery in the world; England has one of the longest. In Canada, a country of 35 million citizens, 1 million patients now wait for surgery and another million wait to see specialists."

"Actually, health-care spending now increases more moderately than it has in previous decades. Food, energy, housing and health care consume the same share of American spending today (55%) that they did in 1960 (53%)."