That's what they keep telling us to justify not switching over to a single-payer system. Also, they say, "you wont be able to get an MRI on demand!", "You won't have PET scans!"

Blah, blah, fucking blah. The last thing in the world 99.999% of Americans need from their medical system is an MRI. In fact, if you gave everybody and MRI, more people would die, because doctors would start trying to figure out what this dot is and that dot is, and iatrogenic deaths would soar. It's been studied, it's true.

Now we find out what we should already know. Expensive medicine is not better medicine. In fact the best medicine, is cheap, old, and simple. The best drugs are the old drugs, the best cures are the old cures, and the best doctors are the old doctors (until they're senile anyway).

Americans had higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancer — findings that held true no matter what income or education level.

Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens.

"Everybody should be discussing it: Why isn't the richest country in the world the healthiest country in the world?" asks study co-author Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at University College London in England.
...
Even the U.S. obesity epidemic couldn't solve the mystery. The researchers crunched numbers to create a hypothetical statistical world in which the English had American lifestyle risk factors, including being as fat as Americans. In that model, Americans were still sicker.

Smoking rates are about the same on both sides of the pond. The English have a higher rate of heavy drinking.

Only non-Hispanic whites were included in the study to eliminate the influence of racial disparities. The researchers looked only at people ages 55 through 64, and the average age of the samples was the same.

Now, the studies authors discount nationalized medicine for being the sole cause of this effect, but I disagree with them. The reason Americans have these high rates of everything is that health care costs more, they are more reluctant to enter the system (even if they are wealthy) and less able to afford treatments if they do. National health emphasizes preventative health care measures, early screenings, early testing, early treatment. Our health care system stresses saving money, costs of procedures and using whatever medicine the insurance company has a coupon for that week. Also, because we have direct-to-consumer advertising, people are taking all sorts of shit they shouldn't be, or for things they should be treating they're taking the new, untested drug rather than the cheaper, old and well tested drug.

This result screams national health care is better, it doesn't counter it.