Cancer and Single Payer Systems

Cancer Research UK presents a troubling report of the dramatically higher moralities to cancer in the UK as compared to the rest of the OECD.

They conclude:

Delay in Diagnosis:

You are more likely to survive cancer if it’s spotted early. But the ICBP studies showed that for lung cancer and, to a lesser extent, bowel cancer, UK patients are often diagnosed at later stages compared to other similar countries. This could help explain the lower survival we see for those cancers.

Lower Access to Treatment:

But early diagnosis alone does not explain the UK’s lower survival; access to the best treatment has increasingly been shown to be a problem. And this is particularly true of treatment rates in older people. Both the EUROCARE and ICBP studies have shown the survival for older patients in the UK is lower than in comparable countries.

It appears as if the problem is a poorly organized and over-controlled centralized system rationing health care. Sounds like the VA or perhaps the ACA.