Harsh truth

Defenders of the American health care system rely on unproven generalities couched in terms like 'best in the world' while the truth is denied. 'I don't want government controlling my health care' is simply allowing corporations that same control. I know who I would trust more.

France best, U.S. worst in preventable death ranking

France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.

They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a country's health care system.

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