We all know about healthcare issues in America. It's too expensive, there's gaps in insurance coverage, the healthcare market is uncompetitive, provider payments are often unclear, prices are unclear, bureaucracy is transformed, citizens face absurd barriers to planning and provider personal choices.
These problems scream for solutions. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently revised his era therapy remedies for our illness: the government-run “single payer” system of national health insurance.
What is his reason for adopting such a system? The US spends $4.9 trillion on healthcare, more than any other country in the world. However, our medical outcomes in certain areas, such as maternal mortality rates, are substandard.
At that point, Sanders is right.
But our problem is much deeper than flawed funding and insurance arrangements. The underlying cause of our spending problems is the growing epidemic of chronic diseases.
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Over 40% of adults are obese, and of course, over 85% of our medical expenses are directed towards the treatment and management of frequently preventable chronic diseases and mental health conditions. Our intense obesity epidemic promotes cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, diabetes and related comorbidities.
In short, due to factors such as obesity, Americans are generally more ill than our counterparts in other developed countries. This means that doctors and hospitals must treat chronic diseases that are more expensive than counterparts in high-income countries.
But not all the news is bad.
When Americans get sick, there is a reason to appreciate the high quality care we have available.
Many of our success in providing care is far too often overlooked. You should be proud of your ability to respond quickly and effectively to treat major killers such as cancer, heart disease, and stroke. And we should celebrate the stunning American advancements in basic biomedical research, pharmacology and technology.
Consider the facts.
First, the United States is an indisputable world champion of biomedical research. Other countries don't even come close.
Since World War II, 74 Americans have won Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine. American achievements include breakthroughs such as the discovery of streptomycin to successfully treat tuberculosis, discovery of tumor-generating viruses, and research into how cell and organ transplants improve disease treatment.
The Nobel Prize winners also pioneered breakthroughs in understanding genetics, immunology and virology. In 1988, the National Academy of Sciences outlined successful research programs for mapping human genomes, leading a new era of biomedical research with great potential to improve and expand human life.
The ability to isolate genetic predispositions to diseases makes the field of future innovation wide open, including the possibilities of regenerative medicine such as ethical stem cells and cell transplantation.
Currently, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are bringing new hosts of possible clinical applications. Soon, medical professionals may be able to deploy powerful new weapons to growing weapons to diagnose, treat, and even predict diseases.
However, the United States is not merely a great biomedical research. We are also rapidly advancing medical technologies to treat and treat diseases, including the most effective robotic surgery based on human genetics, personalized drugs, and progressive therapy.
At the same time, the innovative use of American telehealth will allow tens of millions of patients in rural and underserved areas to be taken care of. Remote patient monitoring devices are now widely available and are becoming increasingly affordable. Patients can now monitor their heart rate, blood pressure and blood glucose levels. This is the ability to allow timely medical interventions and reduce visits to hospital emergency departments.
Globally, no country is close to the US breakthrough and development of a number of life-saving drugs and treatments.
According to 2023 clinical trial data, the US took 8,403 drugs for preclinical and clinical development. The next closest country was China, with 4,024 people and 3,445 in the European Union. The UK and Canada, the leading “single payer” countries, only 1,763 and 1,250, respectively.
In these “single payer” countries, healthcare service delivery is undermined by research and development, bureaucratic delays, and rejection of available drug therapy. For example, one breast cancer therapy was first approved in the US and Europe in 2013, but was not available to women in the UK until 2017.
Similarly, in Canada, as Michael Baker of the American Action Forum points out, “only 11% of new cancer drugs approved in Canada, the US or the EU between 2016 and 2020 were publicly officially listed.”
Meanwhile, in the US, our performance in care delivery is the best in the world. The United States offers outstanding training to physicians and other healthcare professionals, with some of the best medical facilities in the world, including Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, and San Francisco.
Researchers at the Commonwealth Fund in New York, a liberal think tank, routinely give American healthcare a metric “fail” grade. But they report that of the 10 countries that have made economic progress, the US ranks second in the “care process” behind the Netherlands when it considers “prevention, safety, coordination, patient involvement, patient preferences.”
These researchers noted that “between 2010 and 2029, the US focused on patient safety since the beginning of the century, resulting in a significant reduction in adverse events during hospital stays for heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia and major surgery.”
Similarly, cancer is a major cause of death in the United States and around the world, but cancer survival rates in America are impressive. A general measure of success is relative survival over 5 years, meaning the proportion of people in the general population with “cancer type and stage” who live at least five years after diagnosis.
According to data from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the relative five-year survival rate for Americans with all types of breast cancer is 91%, and for early breast cancer, it is 99%. According to data from the American Cancer Society, the five-year “relative survival rate” is 90% for Americans with prostate cancer and 80% for people with colorectal cancer.
But under the “single payer” system like Sanders hopes, it won't be that successful.
Look at the UK's “single payer” performance in cancer treatment.
“Cancer survival rates in the UK are 25 years later than other European countries,” said Ishani Sarkar, an analyst at Macmillan Cancer Support. According to Sarkar, “The analysis suggests whether the UK's survival rates match the highest in Europe. Thousands of people diagnosed each year survive cancer for at least five years.”
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And the universal coverage promise of “single payer” care makes little sense when healthcare is inaccessible.
A recent report by the British Medical Association shows that the UK has around 7.5 million lawsuits over waiting lists. The median waiting time is 14.2 weeks, with approximately 200,000 patients waiting for treatment for more than a year.
In Canada, a recent Fraser Institute report found that “receiving treatment” from primary care physicians reached 30 weeks from their initial referral to reach 30 weeks last year.
Americans should celebrate our success in reducing deaths from major murders such as cancer and heart disease.
“Health care is about access to good preventative care, especially when God helps us, accessing the most innovative treatments. America is doing better than any other country in the world,” said Douglas Holtz Arkhun, former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Although US healthcare funding is not perfect, people facing illnesses such as breast cancer endure much better odds in Massachusetts and Maryland than in London or Liverpool.
And now the new administration has the opportunity to make America healthier than ever.
President Donald Trump has promised to accept the nomination and “unleash the power of American innovation.” By doing this, he said, “will soon be on the verge of finding a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's and many other illnesses.”
Dr. Marty McCurry of Johns Hopkins University recently took the reins at the Food and Drug Administration, while Dr. Jay Batacharya of Stanford University currently heads the National Institutes of Health. Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his new leadership team at the Department of Health and Human Services can highlight prevention, delivery of quality care, and rigorous and transparent medicine.
These efforts unleash a new and prosperous golden age for American medical innovation. This benefits both the US overseas and our friends.
