03 August 2009
Health Reform Is No Cancer
The difference in cancer survival rates between Britain or Canada and the U.S. has less to do with the structure of their health insurance systems than with the disparity of national personal incomes. Income inequality in the U.S. economy permits there to be proportionally a more numerous group of wealthy cancer sufferers than in either of the other two countries cited by Myrna Ulfik in her Op-Ed article, “Health Reform and Cancer,” in the July 31, 2009, Wall Street Journal. Patients like Ms. Ulfik can afford to pay the expense of “gold-plated” health insurance plans similar to the one that members of Congress opt for instead of the public plan.
Cancer survival rates in the U.S. will continue to exceed those in Britain and Canada in spite of reform of our health care insurance system as long as our economy creates disparate wealth to sustain demand for expensive therapies and diagnostic scans. The objective of the Obama health insurance reform must be to make that level of care, for all chronic and emergency illnesses, more equitably available to the population at large without bankrupting the country.
The difference in cancer survival rates between Britain or Canada and the U.S. has less to do with the structure of their health insurance systems than with the disparity of national personal incomes. Income inequality in the U.S. economy permits there to be proportionally a more numerous group of wealthy cancer sufferers than in either of the other two countries cited by Myrna Ulfik in her Op-Ed article, “Health Reform and Cancer,” in the July 31, 2009, Wall Street Journal. Patients like Ms. Ulfik can afford to pay the expense of “gold-plated” health insurance plans similar to the one that members of Congress opt for instead of the public plan.
Cancer survival rates in the U.S. will continue to exceed those in Britain and Canada in spite of reform of our health care insurance system as long as our economy creates disparate wealth to sustain demand for expensive therapies and diagnostic scans. The objective of the Obama health insurance reform must be to make that level of care, for all chronic and emergency illnesses, more equitably available to the population at large without bankrupting the country.
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