As President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the American health care system, the role of government is at the heart of the debate. In Britain, France, Switzerland and elsewhere, public health systems have become political punching bags for opposition parties, costs have skyrocketed and patients have needlessly suffered and died.
"There is nothing inherently different about cancer in the U.S. and Britain to explain why more people are dying here,"
"I would warn Americans that once the government gets its nose into health care, it's hard to stop the dangerous effects later,"
said Valentin Petkantchin, of the Institut Economique Molinari in France. He said many private providers have been pushed out, forcing a dependence on an overstretched public system.
Similar scenarios have been unfolding in the Netherlands and Switzerland, where everyone must buy health insurance.
"The minute you make health insurance mandatory, people start overusing it,"
said Dr. Alphonse Crespo, an orthopedic surgeon and research director at Switzerland's Institut Constant de Rebecque. Government influence in health care may also stifle innovation, other experts warn. Bureaucracies are slow to adopt new medical technologies. In Britain and Germany, even after new drugs are approved, access to them is complicated because independent agencies must decide if they are worth buying.
When the breast cancer drug Herceptin was proven to be effective in 1998, it was available almost immediately in the U.S. But it took another four years for the U.K. to start buying it for British breast cancer patients.
"The U.S. health system is a bit of a mess, but based on what's happened in some countries in Europe, I'd be nervous about recommending more government involvement."
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment