I’ve often said that cancer is the disease about which Americans are most concerned. It’s not hard to understand why. The American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 1.5 million Americans will have been newly diagnosed with cancer by the end of this year. We
all have friends, family, and loved ones who have been affected by this terrible disease. We also have some of the world’s best physicians and scientists, who have made great strides in fighting cancer.
Prostate Cancer Awareness Month has just ended, so it is timely to bring to mind the innovation and capability of the American doctors and researchers who have made America’s prostate cancer survival rates the highest in the world. Americans’ five-year survival rate is 91.0%. It beats out the Canadian survival rate of 85.1%, trounces Europe’s 57.1%, and obliterates England’s 50.9%. As Democrats in Congress seek to make America’s health care more like the government-run bureaucracies in these other countries, I cannot help but fear that our survival rates will decline.
The United States is credited as the leader in at least
eight of the ten greatest medical inventions in the past thirty years. We come to expect this in a country that rewards and promotes advancements in technology. It may seem unfair that America spends more money to develop these new treatments and drugs than other nations, but would it be worth forgoing the MRI? Heart bypass surgery? Anti-depressants?
The United States is a world leader in health care, and it should come as no surprise that American investment and market competition are the driving forces behind successes like our high cancer survival rates. That is why we need to inject competition into the health insurance market as we have the markets for providers and treatments. By allowing all Americans to purchase health insurance at the same tax-preferred rates as their employers, we can make insurance companies innovate and compete with each other to provide the best service—to strive to meet our needs.
American medicine is a field of innovation. Rewarding this innovation has brought our nation the highest prostate cancer survival rates in the world. It is now time for health insurance companies to meet the challenges of patients just as health care providers and researchers have. With market competition, we can have both high survival rates and excellent coverage for every American without government control of health care.
Rep. John Shadegg (AZ-3) is a featured NetRight Nation contributor.
No comments:
Post a Comment