Tuesday
Jul282009
House GOP'ers Say Gov't Health Care Not The Cure
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 12:53PM
By Laura Woodhead - Talk Radio News Service
A government run health care plan will increase cancer mortality rates, said a group of GOP congressmen on Tuesday.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who survived bladder cancer after being diagnosed at age 19, said that the higher cancer mortality rates in the UK and Canada have shown him that a government run health care system will decrease cancer survival rates.
"We have a unique advantage as cancer survivors, that we can go through the bill and debate the bill knowing the personal consequences of what they are proposing would do to somebody just like us," he said. "We know for a fact that our survivability rates are going down."
Rogers warned Americans who have had cancer or are currently undergoing treatment to be wary of the current health care bill.
"85% of Americans have health insurance of some sort. What they are talking about doing is taking that away from you in order to fix 15% of the problem, and in order to do it we will have to ration health care for individuals," Rogers said. "There is no compassion in that, there is to extra treatment in that."
The congressmen spoke alongside a chart which depicted cancer survival rates in countries with government run health care plans versus the United States. Rep. Todd Atkin (R-Mo.) said that the statistics on prostate cancer speak for themselves.
"Among men between the UK and the US, we are talking about an 18% difference in survival rates. When its your life, 18% means an awful lot to you" Atkin said. "When the government takes over the health care system that's the kind of results you get."
Atkin added that he fully expects cancer patients to oppose the legislation.
Said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a survivor of renal and prostate cancer, "If you want a system where your chances of surviving renal cancer are less that even....a government system, all throughout Europe, produces those lower survivor rates for cancer"
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) said that better survival rates in the U.S. can be attributed to the speed at which diagnostic tests can be performed within the current system.
"Under a government health care plan like in the UK and Canada, I would not have had the advantage to get [diagnostic tests] done in such quick time. And it might have been too late."
"We need to focus on those good constructive policies that we all know are going to work, and continue to deliver the best health system in the world," Myrick said. "We don't need to create one that will limit people's choices and ability to go see their doctor."
A government run health care plan will increase cancer mortality rates, said a group of GOP congressmen on Tuesday.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who survived bladder cancer after being diagnosed at age 19, said that the higher cancer mortality rates in the UK and Canada have shown him that a government run health care system will decrease cancer survival rates.
"We have a unique advantage as cancer survivors, that we can go through the bill and debate the bill knowing the personal consequences of what they are proposing would do to somebody just like us," he said. "We know for a fact that our survivability rates are going down."
Rogers warned Americans who have had cancer or are currently undergoing treatment to be wary of the current health care bill.
"85% of Americans have health insurance of some sort. What they are talking about doing is taking that away from you in order to fix 15% of the problem, and in order to do it we will have to ration health care for individuals," Rogers said. "There is no compassion in that, there is to extra treatment in that."
The congressmen spoke alongside a chart which depicted cancer survival rates in countries with government run health care plans versus the United States. Rep. Todd Atkin (R-Mo.) said that the statistics on prostate cancer speak for themselves.
"Among men between the UK and the US, we are talking about an 18% difference in survival rates. When its your life, 18% means an awful lot to you" Atkin said. "When the government takes over the health care system that's the kind of results you get."
Atkin added that he fully expects cancer patients to oppose the legislation.
Said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a survivor of renal and prostate cancer, "If you want a system where your chances of surviving renal cancer are less that even....a government system, all throughout Europe, produces those lower survivor rates for cancer"
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) said that better survival rates in the U.S. can be attributed to the speed at which diagnostic tests can be performed within the current system.
"Under a government health care plan like in the UK and Canada, I would not have had the advantage to get [diagnostic tests] done in such quick time. And it might have been too late."
"We need to focus on those good constructive policies that we all know are going to work, and continue to deliver the best health system in the world," Myrick said. "We don't need to create one that will limit people's choices and ability to go see their doctor."
Reader Comments (4)
A persons chances of surviving Cancer have much more to do with their age then their treatment. With people from the UK and Canada living longer then Americans, it is not that surprising that they are more likely to die from Cancer.
More scare talk from the party for corporate america.
No credence can be given to any politician's statements, as too many of them, if not all, are beholden to some organization's interests, either to curry votss or campaign contributions. Instead, look at orginal studies by non-profit oganizations, such as univerities or the National Institutes of Health, etc. Even then, find out who funded the study, and weigh the findings accordinly. In this case, it sounds like the GOP did its own "study," and who knows where they got their data and their conclusions.
The only way to bring health care costs down with government intervention is through rationing. It's a nice sound bite to say that we will look at what works and dispense with what doesn't but medicine is not nearly that simple. This from a government that cannot even run a small fraction of the health care system (medicare) efficiently. What a joke. Medical care is about the use of statistical probabilities and applying them to INDIVIDUALS. Government control is about passing edicts that one size fits all.