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Comment by tptacek

21 hours ago

Uninsured Americans are in fact universally included in death statistics and in cancer survival outcomes; we have top-tier cancer outcomes.

Europe has several universal coverage systems without single payer. The original sin of the US system isn't private insurance, it's employment-based coverage; that's the thing nobody else has.

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tptacek

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ryanackley  13 hours ago

Again, you cite zero sources. Survival rates for lung cancer in the USA, the most common cancer in the world, are much lower than Japan and South Korea. South Korea is single payer and Japan has strict government regulation of healthcare costs.

The second most common cancer is Breast Cancer. The USA is "top-tier" but so is pretty much every other Western Country. Australia, also famously single-payer is a mere 0.4% behind the USA.

This is the only source of modern survival statistics by country:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5879496/

Compiled into an easier to read format:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-su...

Take note of two things: First, some states weren't even included in the study and second, there is no mention of insurance. The statistics are only tracking people who were diagnosed with cancer. It's reasonable to assume that some people who had cancer symptoms did not seek treatment because they didn't have insurance and died without being diagnosed.

  • tptacek  12 hours ago

    Start with CONCORD-3.

    I'm not saying that the US is better than every other country. I explicitly said somewhere else on this thread that there's a common critique of our outcomes that we just do detection better, and that our life expectancy outcomes aren't materially better.

    What I am saying is that it's difficult to make a case that US life expectancy is materially altered by our health insurance system. You won't be able to use cancer to make that case, because the US has in fact quite good cancer outcomes. That's it: that's the whole argument.

    Again, though: this repeated claim that "the uninsured aren't included in survival statistics" --- I don't know where that's coming from. It's not true.

    • ryanackley  5 hours ago

      I literally posted a link to the CONCORD-3 paper and made arguments using it and you rebutted it with "start with CONCORD-3".

      I'll restate my argument so it's clear: CONCORD-3 does not mention insurance status anywhere in the paper. It does state that the statistics require diagnosis. It's reasonable to assume that if you can't afford healthcare, you're less likely to seek treatment or diagnosis.

      You understand that CONCORD-3 is about tracking people who enter the healthcare system. Isn't it reasonable to assume that if healthcare is free or very affordable, there would be higher participation? And on the flipside, if it's outrageously expensive, there would be lower participation?

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