Comments on: The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World – Part 3 – Great Britain http://www.drwalt.com/blog/?p=771 Helping you keep your family highly healthy Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:32:43 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Health Information http://www.drwalt.com/blog/?p=771&cpage=1#comment-5986 Health Information Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:45:34 +0000 http://www.drwalt.com/blog/?p=771#comment-5986 Great post, i think this is very informative post i had got when searching. Great post, i think this is very informative post i had got when searching.

]]> By: Ian Clements http://www.drwalt.com/blog/?p=771&cpage=1#comment-4160 Ian Clements Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:50:51 +0000 http://www.drwalt.com/blog/?p=771#comment-4160 Whilst seemingly a reasonable summary, some aspects are missing. Early diagnosis may lead to too aggressive and counter-productive treatments (there's been a recent research report on just that); and this earlier diagnosis itself may distort survival times. You rightly say there's much to learn from each system, to the overall goal of enhancing everyone's fitness survival. However, the bottom line that is ignored above, and often in these comparisons (perhaps because it contradicts the wrongly implied superiority of any one system) is the average life spans in each country - to my mind the bottom line of comparison. Here the USA does not come out too well; most the the Western EU comes out better - for less % GDP expenditure. This is backed up by international comparisons of health systems. Remember, more medical intervention does not equal better health - recall that when doctors went on strike, death rates fell. Whilst seemingly a reasonable summary, some aspects are missing. Early diagnosis may lead to too aggressive and counter-productive treatments (there’s been a recent research report on just that); and this earlier diagnosis itself may distort survival times.

You rightly say there’s much to learn from each system, to the overall goal of enhancing everyone’s fitness survival.

However, the bottom line that is ignored above, and often in these comparisons (perhaps because it contradicts the wrongly implied superiority of any one system) is the average life spans in each country – to my mind the bottom line of comparison. Here the USA does not come out too well; most the the Western EU comes out better – for less % GDP expenditure. This is backed up by international comparisons of health systems.

Remember, more medical intervention does not equal better health – recall that when doctors went on strike, death rates fell.

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