Is this a sign Americas health care is the best in the whole wide world?

Question

http://health.yahoo.com/news/178301

fact that so many from mexico and third
world contries trip over each other to get to the US is not a good gauge of americas greatness.
Aussies, and people from france and the UK arent dying to get to the US

Soloran: Why didnt he fly to the US?

Answer 1

That is only half of it.

We rank on the bottom of the ladder in infant morbitity and mortality!

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.

"The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but its newborn rate is higher than any of those countries," said the annual State of the World's Mothers report."

U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says Research: 2 million babies die in first 24 hours each year worldwide
By Jeff Green
CNN

And the highest uninsured group in the US are young adults who think they are death proof!

Answer 2

I assume that your question is tongue in cheek, since the link you give shows that the over all life expectancy in the USA has dropped when compared with other counties. This is one of the fault that you find when your health care is all about the money. You really do not make as much profit on a cure as you do on a treatment. To be fair Health care is not the only reason that we are losing ground in this area we have problems with the foods we eat and the air we breath. Europe has had time to work on these problems we have not. It took people dropping dead in the streets in England before they corrected their air problem. I hope that we can learn from this, but with a party that protects big business more than the family I don't really think that we will see much improvement.

Answer 3

The sole factor behind overall longer life expectancies is the result of modern medicine helping ailing and aging people live longer with their chronic illnesses, at least when it comes the US. The pharmaceutical industry is not in the business of curing disease but rather "illness management." An actual breakthrough cure would surely mean the death knell for the bottome lines of Big Pharma. In Europe and Japan, their focus is not only on helping people live longer, but healtheir as well. Their health care system is mainly focused on primary care to actually help prevent major illness and chronic disease; here in the US, people wait until they are stricken with such an illness, thus costing Americans more in premiums. Those who are not even insured head to the overcrowded and understaffed ERs as their sole source for care. Sad reality, isn't it?

Answer 4

Having been in the profession for over forty years, I can personally attest to the fact that health care within these United States is among the worst in the world. We rank 23rd, for instance, in preventing neonatal death, outranked even by some third-world countries.

Answer 5

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

Answer 6

A health care system based on profit is unethical in my opinion. It seems republicans are only concerned about a fetus, once that fetus becomes a baby, they're on their own to sink or swim. Just hope you were born into a family with money. Our health care system is as corrupt as our government. Need I say more?

Answer 7

It has nothing to do with the level of healthcare. It has to do with an unhealthy diet and lack of a decent excersise program.

The country with the highest life expectancy is Andorra. Does this translate to them having the greatest healthcare facilities in the World? Using your "logic" it would.

Answer 8

Excellent question! If mostly rich people were tripping over each other to get into the USA we'd know we doing something right, but as it stands the majority of people coming are poor. If you get applications mostly from the worst students to go to your college, it doesn't bode well, but if you get applications mostly from those with straight A's, you're doing something right.

Answer 9

[To cantcu]
Do some research before you spew some anti-American rhetoric. The United States is ranked 180th out of 221 countries for infant mortality, with only 6.37 deaths of children under 1 year of age per 1,000 children under 1 year of age.

We are no where near the worst in infant mortality. That honor goes to Angola, with 184.44 deaths per 1,000 children under 1 year of age. And these estimates are based on 2007 figures, so they are current.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

Also...here are a few interesting tidbits.

FACT: Many Europeans and Canadians come to America for life-saving procedures. Why? Because using our system and paying for it in cash is quicker than waiting for their socialized system to find time for them and it's cheaper than using the private specialists in their country. I see this first hand in my hospital where I work since we're nationally and internationally known for burn and cardiac care and I see Canadians mostly (and a few Europeans) of all economic backgrounds come here for cardiac caths, open heart surgery, and major burn victims.

FACT: When Fidel Castro, leader of Cuba and the "excellent" medical system touted in Micheal Moore's "SiCKO" had to have his procedure done last year to save his life, did he go to one of those wonderful Cuban facilities staffed by Cuban doctors and nurses and using equipment Cuba's government bought?

No.

He used a private plane of his to fly a doctor from Spain and all of his equipment to Cuba to preform the procedure. Shows how much faith the leader of the nation with the "best free healthcare in the world" has in his medical staff.

Answer 10

No they are dying in their own country because they can not get a second opinion or timely care.