Thursday 25 March 2010
How does the UK’s Socialized Medicine compare with the U.S. for-profit system?
There are problems making a fair comparison, including differences in reporting systems, coroners' courts, litigiousness, malpractice awards, etc that affect the figures one way or another, but...
A quick internet search suggests that preventable deaths due to medical error in the US are somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 annually. The NHS has between 2000 and 4000. The US population is about 300m, the UK's 60m: a factor of 5.
So adjusted for population that's 10,000 - 40,000 preventable deaths due to medical errors in the US for every 2,000 - 4,000 in the UK.
At best, a US doctor/hospital is five times more likely to kill you than the NHS.
There are problems making a fair comparison, including differences in reporting systems, coroners' courts, litigiousness, malpractice awards, etc that affect the figures one way or another, but...
A quick internet search suggests that preventable deaths due to medical error in the US are somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 annually. The NHS has between 2000 and 4000. The US population is about 300m, the UK's 60m: a factor of 5.
So adjusted for population that's 10,000 - 40,000 preventable deaths due to medical errors in the US for every 2,000 - 4,000 in the UK.
At best, a US doctor/hospital is five times more likely to kill you than the NHS.
# posted by Had It in Holland Park @ 02:52 
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