US ranks worst in preventable deaths (gee, what a surprise)

[Guest guest]

OK, a little sarcasm in the subject line there. I'm not going to get

political here, but if SOMEONE in government doesn't start doing

something SOON, then it's time for a revolution, frankly. It's far

past embarrassing at this point--it's criminal. I am holding all these

candidates to their promises.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080108/hl_nm/deaths_rankings_dc

France best, U.S. worst in preventable death ranking

By Will Dunham Tue Jan 8, 12:21 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France, Japan and Australia rated best and the

United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due

to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations,

researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top

three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United

States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal

Health Affairs.

Researchers Ellen Nolte and McKee of the London School of

Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could

have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and

ranked nations on how they did.

They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a

country's health care system.

Nolte said the large number of Americans who lack any type of health

insurance -- about 47 million people in a country of about 300

million, according to U.S. government estimates -- probably was a key

factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other

industrialized nations in the study.

" I wouldn't say it (the last-place ranking) is a condemnation, because

I think health care in the U.S. is pretty good if you have access. But

if you don't, I think that's the main problem, isn't it? " Nolte said

in a telephone interview.

In establishing their rankings, the researchers considered deaths

before age 75 from numerous causes, including heart disease, stroke,

certain cancers, diabetes, certain bacterial infections and

complications of common surgical procedures.

Such deaths accounted for 23 percent of overall deaths in men and 32

percent of deaths in women, the researchers said.

France did best -- with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and

effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002

and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per

100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000

people, the researchers said.

After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by

Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria,

Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal,

with the United States last.

PREVIOUS RANKINGS

The researchers compared these rankings with rankings for the same 19

countries covering the period of 1997 and 1998. France and Japan also

were first and second in those rankings, while the United States was

15th, meaning it fell four places in the latest rankings.

All the countries made progress in reducing preventable deaths from

these earlier rankings, the researchers said. These types of deaths

dropped by an average of 16 percent for the nations in the study, but

the U.S. decline was only 4 percent.

The research was backed by the Commonwealth Fund, a private New

York-based health policy foundation.

" It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this

crucial indicator of health system performance, " Commonwealth Fund

Senior Vice President Schoen said.

" The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths

more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and

efforts to improve health systems make a difference, " Schoen added in

a statement.

(Editing by Osterman)