What’s not to like about socialized medicine? Update: Video

A lot, apparently.

While some go on about what’s wrong with the American system, no one seems to recognize that, while the US expends a greater portion of GDP on health-care, sometimes you get what you pay for… (Hat Tip: Jonah Goldberg @ the Corner)

Per the Hoover Institute:

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

As they would say in the cartoons of my youth, “Knowing is half the battle.” Those are just half the answers… Clink on the Hoover link if you want the other half.

Update (Jim): Perhaps this could explain why Senator Arlen Specter got a little more than he expected at his Philly town hall over the weekend.

Even better … Specter’s response. Hey … you can’t expect a man of my stature to actually read the bill? Catch the boooooooooooooooos.