Where U.S. Health Care Ranks Number One

The January 7, 2010 Wall Street Journal published the following OpEd by New Hampshire surgeon Dr. Mark Constantian on the quality of medical care in the US.

Here is an excerpt from "Where U.S. Health Care Ranks Number One":

...The Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology have been awarded to more Americans than to researchers in all other countries combined.

Eight of the 10 top-selling drugs in the world were developed by U.S. companies.

The U.S. has some of the highest breast, colon and prostate cancer survival rates in the world. And our country ranks first or second in the world in kidney transplants, liver transplants, heart transplants, total knee replacements, coronary artery bypass, and percutaneous coronary interventions.

We have the shortest waiting time for nonemergency surgery in the world; England has one of the longest. In Canada, a country of 35 million citizens, 1 million patients now wait for surgery and another million wait to see specialists.

Yes, the US health system has problems. But any kind of government takeover will simply make things worse, not better.

8 out of 10 Americans are happy with the quality of the care they receive. Let's not destroy our current system by a headlong rush to "universal health care".