Report: Rudy Ad Fudges Numbers On UK Prostate Cancer

Comments (15)

along wrote on October 29, 2007 6:12 PM:

Actually ABC states, correctly, that the article was published in City Journal this year, in the Summer 2007 issue:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

But the data the author was relying on, unnoted in the article, were from a 2000 study by the Commonwealth Fund.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org

I can't find the data on their site in any chart, survey, or publication.

tacitus wrote on October 29, 2007 6:36 PM:

As I said in a previous thread. Rudy's comparison of healthcare between the US and UK is invalid from the get go.

Rudy, with his millions, would have had the best private cancer treatment no matter where he lived.

I see the same red herring being mentioned by the right to demonize socialized medicine--that it would take away the option to go private. It doesn't, as proved by the millions of British people who have used private UK health care over the years, mostly for non-urgent procedures, including my own mother who is not a wealthy person.

Many companies will still offer private health care plans (as did mine when I worked in the UK) even if there is a single-payer system in place, and those who are wealthy enough will always have the option to go wherever they want.

Icy Truth wrote on October 29, 2007 8:06 PM:

Lower is lower, whether it's 8% or 38%.

And it's interesting to note that publicity about getting checked is stronger in the US. You'd think it would be in the best interest of a gov't paying for your care to spend some of that tax money on promotion for early screening.

Also, "relatively benign forms of it [cancer]" is an oxymoron. Cells are either benign or malignant. If you label a growth as benign, no matter how high its potential to mutate into cancer, it IS NOT cancer; likewise, if even 1% of a tumor is cancerous it IS NOT benign (or a relatively benign form). You either have it or you don't.

Kevinott wrote on October 29, 2007 8:33 PM:

Just for the record prostate survival rates in Canada around that time were over 90%.

Rob wrote on October 29, 2007 8:34 PM:

res icy truth -- the big QN in prostate cancer was and IS, how to tell very slow growing variants from faster and fastest ones. Having had the diagnosis and surgery I follow this closely. Roughly speaking the first could be monitored, the second should be treated, and the third, it may not make any difference.

ulla wrote on October 29, 2007 8:38 PM:

This is only one aspect of Rudy's fight for the rich. National health care would tax private insurance companies one way or the other but not destroy them by any means. National health care places great importance on Preventive Health Care. This would get the medical establishment for-profit hospitals and the like up in arms. They depend on people getting sick.

ulla wrote on October 29, 2007 8:47 PM:

To the Icy Truth:
In the knife- happy America many benign tumors are cut out 'just in case'
It is not as simple as either you have it or you don't. Also, diagnosis between benign and freshly malign is not 100%. These are the facors that inflate the American statistics.

rbaer wrote on October 29, 2007 9:11 PM:

icy truth - you are right that cells are usually classified as benign or malignant, but like with everything in real life, there are shades of grey: basal cell carcinoma has some malignant qualities like invasive growth that won't stop (unless you cut it out); but it does not metastasize. Anyway, what matters in calling a cancer more benign or malignant are features like the tendency to metastasize, invasiveness, responsiveness to treatment etc., and all this is reflected in the 5 year survival rate. And the one of prostate cancer is, like breast cancer's, rather on the high end. The opposite is true for malignant melanoma or glioblastoma(a brain cancer). With regards to possible financial benefits of screening tests, you have to be sure that screening has not only a benefit in years of life gained, but also financially ... for your argument at least.

Daniel wrote on October 29, 2007 9:33 PM:

Reports today that Giuliani is now planning to seriously compete in New Hampshire. At least he acknowledges that he cannot hope to "survive January" without getting a win somewhere, but he won't get one in NH given Romney edge there unless he first takes on Romney in Iowa... which seems quite impossible at the moment!
Full analysis of the GOP race and Giuliani's fundamental problem here.

marvin thalenberg MD wrote on October 29, 2007 10:53 PM:

The older you get the more likely you will have cancer cels in your prostate. The curve approximates 100% as you reach 90. But treating a 75 year old will have no effect on his survival

Blacks ten to have more malignant prostic cncers than white, but as you can imagine , dont have access to psa screening or digita exam of the gland. So the UK's universal halt insurance will find more cancer and will allow earlier treatment in men under 65. That is why their curve is rising and ours stays flat.

Icy Truth wrote on October 30, 2007 1:54 AM:

From: Global Cancer Statistics, 2002
published by the American Cancer Society

http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/55/2/74

From Table 2 of the report:

Survival (%) from Prostate Cancer:
Northern America 87%
Western Europe 72%

Northern America is the US & Canada.
Every country in Western Europe (which includes the UK) has universal health care.

So yes, Rudy's numbers are wrong, but a 15% difference is still significant, especially when you consider that the US has both the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the world AND the highest survival rate.

From Table 3 of the report (you have to do some math):

Survival rate for all cancers:
Northern America 62%
Western Europe 51%
Average rate for developed countries 50%

Looks like we're doing pretty well.

truthyness lover wrote on October 30, 2007 2:37 PM:

Wasnt Rudy covered by his state health plan at the time ?I.E.socialised medicine vs.private?Just saying.

Icy Truth wrote on October 30, 2007 4:48 PM:

truthyness lover wrote:
"Wasnt Rudy covered by his state health plan at the time ?I.E.socialised medicine vs.private?Just saying."

-- I'm not sure why Rudy would've been covered by a STATE health plan when he was mayor of New York CITY, but maybe that's the way things work in New York. Anyway, gov't employees DO NOT receive socialized medicine! Healthcare is part of the compensation package they receive for doing their job, just as it is in much (do we dare say "most"?) of the private sector. It is earned, not given for free. It only becomes socialized medicine when the gov't provides care for those people who ARE NOT gov't employees.

dkm wrote on October 30, 2007 7:54 PM:

Icy Truth blew it again. Socialized medicine is when the doctors and other medical personnel are salaried employees of the government. Single payer is not socialized medicine. It is using the government as an insurance provider because the government does a much more efficient job than private companies. Just look at the balance sheets.

To argue that employer provided insurance is somehow different because it is "earned" is missing the boat. Dependents of employees are also covered but don't work for the company. People covered by single payer taxpayer provided insurance have earned their insurance just as much by paying taxes or being the dependent of a taxpayer. Arguing that the poverty striken don't pay taxes is dishonest because they pay a higher percent of their income in taxes than the wealthy, just not as income tax. The right wing would have you believe that only income tax counts, but those who work for a living know better. They pay everything from sales tax to SS tax to Medicare while the wealthy live from dividends and stock options which don't pay either SS or Medicare.

The other part where the reactionaries have it wrong is to think of health care strictly as a money producing operation. Health care has as its primary goal the well-being of its clients. Profit is NOT the primary reason for its existence. Reactionaries can't understand this concept that money isn't the sole basis for everything. And trying to talk to them about it is futile because they are so bound to money being the central part of their existence that they can no more conceptualize anything else than a snake can conceptualize getting off its belly.

Icy Truth wrote on October 30, 2007 11:35 PM:

dkm wrote: "Icy Truth blew it again. Socialized medicine is when the doctors and other medical personnel are salaried employees of the government."

-- And they provide care to everyone, which is WHAT I WROTE: "It only becomes socialized medicine when the gov't provides care". In order for the gov't to PROVIDE care, it must employ the medical personnel, like you said. I didn't "blow" anything.

"Single payer is not socialized medicine. It is using the government as an insurance provider because the government does a much more efficient job than private companies. Just look at the balance sheets."

-- 1) I didn't mistake one system name for the other. I was responding to a poster who used the term "socialized medicine". 2) When the gov't raises the tax rate for all, in order to fund the insurance it provides to some or to all (whether they want it or not), the question of who the doctors work for becomes moot. The system is socialized because all are forced to pay for the care of others, just as it is with SOCIAL Security. 3) Care to provide some links to those balance sheets?

"People covered by single payer taxpayer provided insurance have earned their insurance just as much by paying taxes or being the dependent of a taxpayer."

-- That's a perfect description of the nanny state. "I pay taxes; therefore, the gov't owes me health insurance. And not only that; my neighbor is obligated to pay higher taxes in order to fund my insurance."

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