10 Things Media Won't Tell You About American Healthcare

By Noel Sheppard
August 2, 2009



If the media were honest with the public about the quality of healthcare in America, would Obama and the Democrats have a prayer in passing the kind of reform currently being proposed?

Probably about as good a chance as the Washington Nationals winning the World Series this year, right?

If you think this is overstating the case, read the following report prepared by Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School (h/t Glenn Reynolds):



Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.

The following are the ten major points espoused in his report:

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.

6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.

7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.

8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.

9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.

10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

Readers are encouraged to review the entire piece for the truly remarkable details associated with each point above, and ask themselves why, if our healthcare really is this spectacular, our media refuse to tell us.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

The Hoover Institute report is here.