Obamacare-Threat-To-Breast-Cancer-Treatment Awareness Month

Thanks in part to NFL jocks wearing pink to commemorate National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the issue of breast cancer receives enormous publicity every October. Less well publicized is that the United States has the world’s highest breast cancer survival rate.

And that success story may be threatened due to Obamacare.

The real War on Women this political season has been ignored. The government-run health systems abroad that Obamacare mimics have significantly higher cancer mortality rates – including breast cancer – than the U.S. Take Michigan’s neighbor to the north.

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, Americans have a nine percent lower breast cancer mortality rate than Canadians. From prostate cancer (184 percent higher) to colon cancer mortality among men (10 percent higher) Canadians suffer worse cancer survival rates than the U.S. Go across the pond and the pattern holds: The U.S. has 9 percent higher breast cancer survival rates than Germany and  15 percent higher than England.

Why? Because universal care does not mean universal access to treatment. In nationally regulated systems from Canada to Europe, burdensome regulations and government-controlled health reimbursement create doctor shortages and reduced treatment. A hospital survey of five countries (U.S., Canada, New Zealand, U.K., and Australia), conducted by Prof. Robert Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health, found that “waits of six months or more for elective surgeries were reported to occur ‘very often’ or ‘often’ by 26-57 percent of executives in the four non-U.S. countries; only 1 percent of U.S. hospitals reported this.”

“It’s one of the most oft-repeated justifications for socialized medicine,” writes Forbes health expert Avril Roy in pointing out that the U.S. has the world’s highest mortality rates once you strip out our taste for murder. “If we would just hop on the European health-care bandwagon, we’d live longer and healthier lives. The only problem is it’s not true.”

The Fraser Institute reports ”universally-covered” Canadians pouring into the U.S. to find treatment: “46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent – more than double – compared with statistics from 1993.”

This is Obamacare’s model?

Indeed, in Massachusetts - home of Romneycare, the state model for Obamacare – patient wait times are increasing as are premiums. Alas, Romneycare’s troubles have been ignored by Obamedia – in part because the Romney campaign has shied from attacking Obamacare for fear of calling attention to its own candidate’s failings.

Barack Obama wants a second term in order to consolidate his biggest legislative achievement: Obamacare. Yet the act’s unpopularity – primarily due to its mandate that Americans buy insurance – has compelled the Obama campaign to set up straw women like the “Republican War on Women.” The irony is that women stand to lose the most from the president’s federal takeover of the world’s best health care system.

Anyone for wearing pink for Obamacare Awareness Month?