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This year, the world will be treated to the carnivalesque-side of the US presidential election.  Every four years, we get to make a choice (kind of) between two parties vying for control over the most powerful country on the planet. They do this by making promises that more than likely they may not be able to keep due to the petulant interference of the loosing party, taking the opportunity to use the next four years as a sick game of non-cooperation and payback.

One of the most contentious and divisive issues today is health care; more specifically, whether to ensure that all Americans have the right to health care, despite the ability to pay.  This debate has been settled by most of the other industrialized countries in the world.  France, Canada, England and others have decided that medical care is a human right not a business.  In the US, some see this as "Un-American". Doctors and hospitals have the right to turn sick people away if they cannot pay. It is the price we must bear for the highest level of medical care in the world, even if it is not accessible to most.

Well, a new study, once again, questions this viewpoint. The United States lags behind three other industrialized nations-France, Germany, and the United Kingdom-in its potentially preventable death rate, and in the pace of improvement in preventing deaths that could have been avoided with timely and effective health care, according to a Commonwealth Fund-supported study published as a web first online today in Health Affairs.

Between 1999 and 2006/2007, the overall potentially preventable death rate among men ages 0 to 74 dropped by only 18.5 percent in the United States, while the rate declined by nearly 37 percent in the U.K. For women, the rate fell by 17.5 percent in the U.S. but by nearly 32 percent in the U.K.

In "In Amenable Mortality-Deaths Avoidable Through Health Care-Progress In the US Lags That of Three European Countries," Ellen Nolte, Director of Health and Health Care at RAND Europe and Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine analyzed amenable mortality trends.

Amenable mortality is a measure of deaths before age 75 that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to appropriate health care. The research also looked at death rates for those under 65, as well as deaths between ages 65 and 74 from conditions like treatable cancer, diabetes, infections, and heart disease.

The news was most pronounced for Americans under the age of 65.  The study attributes this to the fact that this group is more likely to be uninsured and have problems with access to care than those 65 and older, who are eligible for Medicare.

By comparison, France, Germany, and the U.K. all provide affordable, universal coverage to their populations regardless of age. "These findings strengthen the case for reforms that will enable all Americans to receive timely and effective health care" said Nolte, lead author of the study.

If the current US policy remains unchanged, it is almost a guarantee that the American population under 65 most impacted, will not survive much past years or tier quality of life will be greatly diminished.  I hear Alberta, Canada is nice this time of year and has a great school system. 

Ron Paul told his adoring audience last night in his much-awaited RNC speech,  "College graduates should not have to live out their 20's in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at the fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with their life": not once considering that while they wait and wonder, they will not have the added worry of falling ill and being unable to pay their hospital bills thanks to "Obamacare."