From a study done on 2003-2003 mortality data from 19 countries, the U.S. came in last.

I know the point of Traineo is to minimize having to rely on a healthcare system to begin with, but geez.

At the risk of getting too political, I *am* a bit concerned about this.

Then we offset each other because it doesn't worry me one bit.

For what reason doesn't it worry you?

In any case, I came back to point out a flaw in the study. Consider the following thought experiment: I have a box of tennis balls than I then drop over a balcony while someone below tries to catch them in a basket. How many balls hit the floor is dependent on two things: how good the catcher is, and how many balls I throw in the first place.

What the study is essentially doing is counting balls hitting the floor and adjusting that against how many I have in the basket behind me. It doesn't take into account how many I threw. I could increase the number of balls hitting the floor by just throwing more.

If the balls in the basket are population and the ones hitting the floor are "amenable mortalities", then in order to be able to say anything about the skill of the catcher (our healthcare system) then we need to know either how many balls were thrown, or how many the catcher actually caught.

You can think of "balls thrown" as fatal but amenable health incidents. It doesn't matter whether the incident was due to obesity or lifestyle choice, because we're interested in how well our healthcare systems treat such incidents without assigning blame to the cause of the incident. However, the study doesn't answer that question after all.

The U.S. healthcare system is broken. It is dominated by the entrenched interests of mega insurance agencies and ridiculous cost of services. It also places an anchor on our corporations, such as GM and Ford, which are responsible for the healthcare of retired (and aging) employees.

And the meme that the best healthcare in the world is in the U.S. is not supported factually. Certainly, exemplary care is available for some, but not all. The U.S. ranks way down among industrialized nations in the most generally accepted measurement of effective health care: infant mortality. Also, reports suggest that the insane inflation of the healthcare industry could be brought under control and the cost of services halved if the U.S. moved to a more European model.

I'll bite my tongue though and save my political commentary for other sites.

How could there be a reason for not worrying about something? That's like asking for a reason why I'm not wet.

Well for one, Uncovering Some Really Bad Science.

Which does a better job of explaining what I was already thinking and the common sense fact that if I were sick and needed healthcare I sure as well won't be going to France or Spain or any of the other countries ranked ahead of the U.S.

Splint, very good read. A fine example of why you shouldn't believe everything you read. Is that your blog?

I actually read the CoyoteBlog posting before I posted on Traineo, since it was linked to in the Comments section of the article I posted.

That article makes its own outrageously unfounded assumptions. The claim that amenable mortality conditions were arbitrarily chosen is ridiculous -- you go to a bunch of medical experts and ask them "Is this kind of medical condition generally treatable with a high survival rate?" and they say yes or no. What is arbitrary about that?

I do agree that the study is flawed, but not for the reasons CoyoteBlog says. In fact, CoyoteBlog goes off on a complicated tangent when the answer is much simpler -- just tell us how many people with amenable conditions survived compared to those who died and that gives us a better picture of the quality of healthcare.

If a doctor botched an appendectomy, would his incompetence be forgiven if he turned around and said "Well it's your fault for eating all that junk!". Or if a healthcare company refused treatment for liver transplant and then said "Well, it's your fault that you drank so much!" does that get them off the hook? How people get sick is a separate problem entirely from how well the system deals with it once they are sick. But the incompetent and the greedy try to spin the tables around by telling the patient that it's their fault. It may be true -- maybe the patient did have a hand in getting that way. But it's completely irrelevant.

ETA: The point is also not whether the U.S. has the best healthcare for the affluent. If you can afford to fly to France or Spain, then you can probably afford the best treatment in the U.S. so it's a moot point.

People believe what they want, me I don't believe either viewpoint. I believe in my small town doctor that takes cash.

Bicker amongst yourselves, I take my leave.

Anyone ever see The Barbarian Invasions? It's a French-Canadian film that isn't exactly about healthcare, but it does highlight the many downsides of a public healthcare system.

People (and not just the wealthy) come from countries all over the world to get care here in the U.S. Government run healthcare does not create excellence but imposes limits and restrictions that inhibit innovation.

I'm not saying the system isn't broken, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each way. You either get mediocre healthcare for all or good healthcare for some.