McCarthy needs to provide some straight answers
The opening sentence in Rep. Kevin McCarthy's July 25 Community Voices article was indisputably true: "The future of America's health care stands at a crossroads." However, I found everything else in his article unsettlingly strange, if not outright unthinking propaganda.
McCarthy mentions a hospital in Buffalo, N.Y., delivering Canadian babies because "rationing occurs north of the border." How do you ration babies? Does the Canadian health care system schedule woman in active labor to "hold it" for one week or six months?
A few years ago, McCarthy's party was criticizing Mexican women who came across the border to have their babies -- not because Mexico has a national health care system but because these women wanted their children to be born American citizens. Look at a map. Buffalo is on the border with Canada. Do these babies get citizenship?
He adds that in "Great Britain's government-run health care program" the five-year survival rate for breast cancer was 69 percent, while in the United States it is 83 percent. I wish McCarthy would list references. I cannot verify his numbers. The U.K. does not publish breast cancer survival rates based on the stage of the cancer at the time of diagnose and the U.S. does -- but does not publish five-year survival rates as an aggregate of all stages. So the numbers are not totally comparable. The best number for five-year survival in England and Wales is 80 percent (according to Cancer Research UK). In the U.S., the five-year survival rates "for breast cancer that is appropriately treated" varies from 100 percent for stage I to 20 percent for stage IV (according to the American Cancer Society).
I also cannot verify his numbers on prostate cancer. He quotes a 91 percent five-year survival rate in the U.S. and a 51 percent in Great Britain. The most recent five-year survival rates that I could find for the U.K. is 80 percent (according to Cancer Research UK). The same number for the U.S. is 92.9 percent (National Cancer Institute). In the U.S., the variation between stages is 99.9 percent to 73.5 percent. Both countries report marked improvements in survival rates since the 1990 after the introduction of PSA testing. On a routine basis, more men in the U.S. appear to get PSA tests than in the U.K. This appears to account for the difference in survival rates. Is this a difference in availability of testing or a difference in culture?
The facts are that the U.S. spends twice as much per person as any other industrialized country on health care and is ranked No. 37 in outcome by the World Health Organization. When you hear arguments about people coming to the U.S. for health care either because our system is so good or because they have to wait so long for scheduling of their operation, you should ask how many people leave this country for their surgeries (medical tourism) because they either do not have health insurance or their insurance refuses to pay for what they consider necessary.
You should also ask how many people are actually hurt by delays in their system and why is this not reflected in the outcome data. You should also think about the 47 million in this country who not only get delayed but often do not even get their operations and are hurt because they do not have health insurance.
Also, you should ask who pays for the services of those people who come to this county for health care. The stereotype is that the Saudis pay privately with oil money and the Mexicans are paid for by our welfare system. But how about the Canadians having their babies or surgeries? All of the above are questions that deserve an answer. I openly challenge McCarthy to answer them. He'll have a chance Aug. 26, when he hosts a community forum on health care at Cal State Bakersfield.
Presently, for those with insurance: You have your insurance company between you and your doctor. For those unfortunate enough to have been seriously ill recently, you know what that means. For those without insurance -- you have no one between you and unscrupulous doctors. For those who might lose their jobs -- good luck. For those with Medicare, sleep well and peacefully.
William D. Bezdek has practiced cardiology in Bakersfield for 34 years. He is a Fellow of the American Collage of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Collage of Cardiology.
