The wonders of socialized medicine

Doesn’t Britain have that wonderful, wonderful, incredibly just too wonderful socialized medicine that Michael Moore wants American to adopt? If it does — and I think that, perhaps, it does — Moore might want to check out this story, which blames problems, in part, on those lovely, lovely, lovely waiting lists that just seem magically to occur under the too, too, too good socialized medicine system:

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

England is on a par with Poland despite the NHS spending three times more on health care.

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.

In total, 52.7pc of women survived for five years after being diagnosed between 2000 and 2002. Only Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Czech Republic and Poland did worse. Just 44.8pc of men survived, putting England in the bottom seven countries.

The team, writing in The Lancet Oncology, found that Britain’s survival rates for the most common cancers – colorectal, lung, breast and prostate – were substantially behind those in Western Europe. In England, the proportion of women with breast cancer who were alive five years after diagnosis was 77.8pc. Scotland (77.3pc) and Ireland (76.2pc) had a lower rate.

Rates for lung cancer in England were poor, with only 8.4pc of patients surviving – half the rate for Iceland (16.8pc). Only Scotland (8.2pc) and Malta (4.6pc) did worse.

Fewer women in England lived for five years after being diagnosed with cervical cancer (58.6pc) despite a national screening programme. This compared to 70.6pc in Iceland. Dr Franco Berrino, who led the study at the National Cancer Institute in Milan, said cancer care was improving in countries that recorded low survival figures. He added: “If all countries attained the mean survival (57pc) of Norway, Sweden and Finland, about 12pc fewer deaths would occur in the five years after diagnosis.”

His co-researcher, Prof Ian Kunkler from the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, said waiting lists for radiotherapy were partly to blame.

“Although there has been a substantial investment in radiotherapy facilities, there is still a shortfall,” he said.

Maybe the Dems should check out this story too.  They might learn something.