Hoover Institution – Hoover Digest – Here’s a Second Opinion
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
Some things you might not be hearing during this debate.
Stinks of bias, GruntDoc. If you look at the actual cancer statistics from actual sources, you’ll see those numbers are incorrect. (I’ll also note how many people go undiagnosed in the US with cancers due to lack of medical care.)
And the easiest to Google, access to CT/MRI scanners. Looking at the OECD’s information on the subject, we’re near the top but not anywhere near it for MRI scanners, but fall plainly in the very middle with CT scanners. All at twice the cost and no better outcomes.
Graham,
Did you read the page you referenced? Pg 42, right-hand column, middle:
“It should be noted that the figures for the United States under-estimate considerably the real number of CT and MRI units in that country, because they refer to the number of hospitals reporting to have at least one scanner rather than the total number of scanners in hospitals and in other locations” (emphasis mine)
So they don’t count multiple scanners at the same hospital (my facility has multiple), and they don’t count independent outpatient imaging centers, and office-based MR and CT.
Hmmm.