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These results could actually be quite accurate. Where I have a concern is the fact that the statistic being presented is a % change of a period of time.
This is a dangerous type of number because the time frame chosen can have an incredible impact on the results.
For example, very often when long term stock performance is compared to other investments- the starting date will be right after the 1929 Crash when the stock market was at an incredibly low point. While long term stock performance is superior to other traditional forms of investment, starting after the big crash versus 2 weeks before the big crash has a huge impact on how the numbers look.
In this instance, the results are all the more suspicious since only 2 short periods of time were studied and were not contiguous. With the decades of health care data available, why were only a pair of 2 year period presented?
It is also worth noting that the UK is second worst and yet the NHS system was really the first major national health service and is the poster child for national health care (as abysmal as it is now, for a long time it was a shining success.) So it is hard to blame a lack of national health care on this issue.
The United States has the best health care in the world and always has. Doctors flood into this country from around the world to study at top schools and practice in top hospitals. In fact, and I know this from some personal experience, if you want to really see a truly culturally diverse collection of top professionals from around the world- just check out the surgery staff at any top US hospital.
Because the US has such good health care, it is only natural they would be at a disadvantage when there is a comparison between the RATE of change in quality of care- because the rate of change says nothing about how good the care was at the start of the period being tested.
In other words, if the US went from 95% to 98% and country X went from 80% to 90%- then country X will have a much better rate of change, but you would still rather be sick over here in the good old US of A.
To put it another way, the results of this study may well be very accurate and correct- but they do not answer the question they purport to address.
Personally, I don't know why these kinds of misleading studies are necessary. National health coverage is quite within reach here provided we go about it sensibly, but given the emotional issues surrounding it and the desire of government to have ownership- it is unlikely our political leaders will take the rational path anytime soon.
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