how long can you live with prostate cancer

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Q: How much longer can my dad live with Prostate Cancer?
So my dad is in his 60’s and he has prostate cancer and he has been going in for treatment. What I would like to know is if someone has prostate cancer can you live while undergoing treatment or will it kill you overtime while going in for treatment? If you have prostate cancer how long can you normally live?

A: If prostate cancer is caught early enough (which it normally is), there is a high likelihood that your father will pass away from something else. Especially if he has had treatment. Sometimes, not all that often, there is a type of prostate cancer that is hormone refractory and will not respond to radiation or the hormone therapy. This is the kind that will get out of control fairly quickly.

If he is undergoing treatment, I assume you mean radiation therapy and/or hormone therapy? As long as he is getting treatment, has routine PSA checks and stays on top of his follow-up, he should be okay from the prostate cancer standpoint.

Good luck to him with his treatments! Hope everything turns out okay.

Q: How is it possible to have prostate cancer with a PSA of 2.8 and what are some good treatments for it?
My dad was just recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and his PSA was 2.8. I don’t understand how this is possible if it is such a low number. He’s also 46 years old. I would also like to know what kind of treatment is better and why. His options are:
1) radiation (but the problem with that is that it could damage other areas)
2) surgery (but this just leaves you even worse according to a book he’s reading. there’s a lot of peeing problems where you can no longer hold it in even when you laugh and it also creates a problem with your sex life etc.)
3) Seed implants (not really sure of the name but they put these little seeds inside of you, but again it also has a side effect.)
4) just controlling it every 2 months (with this he can live from 10-15 years by not doing anything and just living with the cancer and when it gets really bad, then try the other options above)
what’s the best option?? please help!
I would greatly appreciate it!!
thanks!!

A: I had prostate cancer in 2005. I am fine now. I had Proton Radiation at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda California. Proton Radiation is not like conventional radiation. Proton Radiation has little to no side effects.. It is very different from the conventional radiation you mention in your question. Approximatly 90% of the treatment energy of Proton Radiation is delivered exactly to the exact place being treated. Surrounding tissue and organs are not damaged. In my opinion, Proton Radiation is the very best Prostate Cancer treatment available today. It has little to no side effects and as good if not better cure rate than the other treatments… The cure rate is about 90% probably even a higher cure rate with a PSA like your dads…and by the way I met several men with low PSA who had Prostate Cancer when I was receiving my treatments.. My PSA was 4.5 and a Gleason of 6. My PSA is now .13 that is point one three!!!!!!.

There is a website called Proton Bob (Bob stands for Brotherhood of the Balloon) that tells lots about Prostate Cancer and Proton Radiation. If you go to the website, please read the Testimonial section of former Patients.. You will find that every one who has had Proton Radiation is as sold on it as I am…and why not.. no side effects and a great cure rate.. its a no brainer decision.. I was not sick for one single day during or after my treatments and I am cured and have no damage or side effects of any kind. Also, Proton Radiation does not effect your other body functions like the other treatments, I dont have to wear a diaper like many who have surgery end up having to do… and all my male plumbing still works just as before …if you know what I mean..

Also there is a new book just out that any one with Prostate Cancer should have . It is called YOU CAN BEAT PROSTATE CANCER and was written by Robert J. Marckini a Postate Cancer survivor. He tells much about Prostate Cancer in the book and tells about all of the treatments available today and the pros and cons of each treatment. The main thing you father should do, in my opinion is to check out the options and not let some doctor talk him in to what ever treatment he is trained in or offers.. That is not necessarily the best thing to do. He doesnt have to decide immediately. I would take a month or so myself and be sure about which treatment I wanted.. Again, I personally feel nothing compares with Proton Radiation.. It is available in about 4 states now.. some doctors dont recommend it becasue they dont know about it, consider it experimental or dont want to send their patients elsewhere…a money thing!!for them….Because of Loma Lindas great sucess with the Proton progam over the last 17 years, other hospitals are starting to offer it.. MD Anderson in HOuston just started, Mass General in Boston, a hospital in Jacksonville Florida and one in Indiana that I know of.. the Proton Bob website tells where they are.

Any way, I hope this is helpful. If you or your dad have any questions about Prostate Cancer or Proton Radiation, I will be glad to share my experience with you or I can furnish you with contacts with men in your area who have had Proton Radiation and who would be glad to share their experience with you… We are all 100% sold on the treatment. Just email me if you want more info. I cant do a spelling check, I get cut off from the internet..so here it comes bad spelling, typos and all…have a great day

Q: Grandpa has cancer, just found out. Literally in tears, PLEASE answer?!?
I just found out my grandpa has cancer. He is 72. No one knows i know, i found outon my own. so i can’t ask any questions. i am 14, so i dont know much about this stuff. I dont know much about his stae right nwo, but my guess is either colon or prostate cancer from what i have heard. i know i heard he doesnt want any surgery or treatment. with this info and his age, how long do you think he will live?

A: no one really knows. my grandpa had cancer too, and was predicted to die within a year, and survived six years. just don’t lose hope.

Q: My depression and anxiety are becoming worse. I am a senior and live alone. ?
I think I know what is going on, but I wonder if there is an easy way out. Over the past few years I have been drinking wine and beer, moderately, but am an alcoholic and don’t want to go through (for the second time) AA programs and give up the alcohol. It seems to me that a little drinking gives me a tiny bit of the good life. If you tell me to give up the wine, to get out more, make friends, exercise, volunteer; I will say OK, but never do them. Instead I will stay inside my house, do computing stuff, drink a litle wine or beers. I want to cure myself, along with my meds. only because I feel the depression inside my head and I don’t do the thinks I used to like to do. I am 70 and have prostate cancer and no more prospects of finding a girlfriend. That is a big depressive. I wont bore you with all the others, because I have started to read all the books guarenteed to lift one out of depression and never get to the end. About the only thing that worked much was going into new wilderness areas in the safety of a group tour, but now I don’t have the money to do this. I do feel that there is SOMETHING just about to come into my consiousness that will tell me what to do and I will feel great. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out what that is while I am depressed or anxious. OK this is too long a soupy, but maybe somebody is here tonight who can tell me how to save my life.

A: I am a senora exactly on your age and alone.Probably we’ve pissed in the sand in the same year , you there , I here . After 70 years we are meeting to speak about our problems via a computer. Interesting thing , do you don’t think so ? ! . Then why am I alone? I am a beautiful and healthy woman, I look 10 years less, energetic and creative person, still work and dream.My answer is because all men I met have the problems at this age, like you described in your question and I am not ready to get such partner of life. Like me , I think, any woman thinks the same. she comes with her baggage, you come with yours, so what good may be?
You drink a little wine, I “drink” a bit cigarette { I am laughing}. So what? It is not a big defect. Each one of us has a “negative”part.
If you really want to save your life , believe me , all depend of you.
If you wonder if there is an easy way out, I’ll tell you a big YES.
Right now , when you’ll finish to read my letter take a paper and a pencil and begin to write your impression about. Not tomorrow, but right now and without censure and criticism. Spontaneously. Continue to write different ideas about how you can improve your financial status at least a bit. I mean ,do brainstorm like I do each time when I have to solve something. Instead to talk with the walls, do brainstorm ,then you speak with best your friend that is your subconscious mind. I learned computer by myself, after 60 and already have built a website in which I sell products of others as an affiliate. More or less I have some good dollars from that . You can do the same. I also work physically enough hardly 4 days on week for low salary but I get contact with people. Don’t put yourself to the outskirts of society,lying in depression, because, my dearling, nobody will help you. Wake up right now.
And , yes I’ll say you do exercises, like I do each day 100 deep breaths. Oxygen doesn’t cost money. It’s free for all and doing so you make happy your heart and brain. At our age we need these organs.
I didn’t forget your prostate cancer,but my answer to you is long and I want you’ll make what I already told you
Really I can and want to help you. I don’t permit letter to my inbox but you ,if you want to hear from me can put me in your contact and then yahoo will tell me
Sincerely
Magdalena.

Q: How can all these liberals think health care is so great around the world?
Dont they read? DOnt they travel? I guess if you live in public housing, you dont get to travel much. I guess if you are told you have to swallow the pied pipers claims book line and sinker you gotta do what you gotta do or he wont pay you for your vote next time.

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:

* Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).

* Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.

* More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).

* Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”

8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).

9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.

10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.

(http://www.hoov
you gotta love dullards that think “everything you say is just wrong” passes for debate. My My you are a democrat
No what is funny is democrats had total control of the congress 52 years since 1933 and republicans had 17. Yet democrats blame everything on republicans despite them having power 3 times as much!
again jenny is wrong. every post she does that! THe fact is that every nations people DO trade it, every single day! They fly across the world to the US to get the best healthcare on the planet. ISnt it odd that every single rich person that gets really sick comes to the US? did you ever think to ask why?
ad as for #6 and dustbin the fact is I used to work for WHO. THey rank health care based on the difference between the rich health care and the poor health care. If you give everyone a bandaid for a heart attack, according to them, you have great health care. Yea, you are geniuses!
WHy yes green. I had a compound fracture of my lower leg in germany. Id say that means I do have first hand experience.
jenny its not just hte rich that have great health care. IM not rich and mine is better than anyone in europe or australia gets. I had a seizure one time 3 years ago. I went to the hospital and was given my choice of which kind of MRI I wanted right then, not 3 weeks later. I opted for the open one and got it then.
Wow whining that a cancer survivor files bankruptcy? So you get to keep your car, your house… and your life. I guess you are right. ITs better to be dead.
Mr bad you are correct! My link was incomplete. accept my apologies and my link

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html
Mr bad because it is. I lived in seattle and they actually have waits for non emergency health care exactly because of the burden of canadians. BUT it has been mitigated by simply more drs per capita moving there. See that is the great thing about real health care is you have flexibility
NO jenny. REmember Natasha richardson? SHe was rich. SHe fell down and hit her head. She thought she was OK> A few hours later she started passing out. They rushed her to the hospital where they DID NOT even give her a ct scan. After all they needed to get approval and there was the matter of cost… well anyway since they saved $392 she died of bleeding on the brain. A ct scan would have shown that and a quick drainage hole would have saved her life.. but look at the bright side, they saved $392! I hope that helped canada recover.
Con man the only difference is if my insurance company screws me, I can sue them. If obama care screws you you are expressly forbidden from any remedies. YOU are not allowed to sue them. You should just go take advantage of some of their end of life suicide seminars…..
Very good momma!
>If your country’s health care system is so great, why are Americans, going to India, Thailand, Mexico, etc., for health care? http://www.alternet.org/workplace/98045/…

BEcause when they go it makes the news. when people come here it doesnt. alternet? yes a well known news source.

Why do so many from Canada and Great Britain come on here and say they wouldn’t trade theirs for ours at gunpoint?

A combination of pride and ignorance.

>Most Canadians are able to come here for care only because the Canadian government pays the bills.

Yes, because even the canadian supreme court says the health care system kills its subscribers.

Why do so many Americans die from lack of health care every year? 136,000 died from 2000 to 2006. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/tal…

which is zero percentage wise compared to canada. Here you go. about 1000 people had sars in canada. 49 died. about 1000 people had sars in the US. ONE died
Really momma? the fact that .00001% of americans go over seas for health care versus what? 20% go from canada doesnt seem like there is a difference? Maybe you should go to a good 3rd grade math class
Really momma? the fact that .00001% of americans go over seas for health care versus what? 20% go from canada doesnt seem like there is a difference? Maybe you should go to a good 3rd grade math class
see brittanys dumb ass, I posted a link to the numbers, proving that only you are stupid.

A: Great post! They say it works because they have no idea what they are talking about; they repeat what people from those countries say. People in those countries say it works because it’s all they’ve ever known.

Q: Should we tell kids that we hired a lawyer?
My husband and I got a lawyer a few days ago to take his ex wife to court for full custody of the kids. They have 2 kids Boy,16 and girl 13.

The real mom and her husband has been bad mouthing me and my husband to the kids. Calling us cheap, saying that the kids shouldn’t have to call us when they leave the house and we should provide cell phones to them for that, the step dad told the girl 13..you act so much like your dad that is isn’t even funny and you are only worried about yourself and you are so selfish like he is..in not so nice words. He refuses to knock on her door when she is changing her clothes..he said it is my house and i will do what i want to do, The step dad can not hold a job for more than a week (it takes that long for a back round check to come back…he is a felon 4 times over) The girl 13, had a chore one day of doing the dishes.. and he noticed that one of the dishes was still dirty..he ended up throwing the dish at her missing her but it still breaking so the boy16, noticed what was going on and he picked up a sweeper attachment and threw it at the step dad, the step dad in turn put him into a headlock on the floor.. the situation didn’t get any better. I should mention that the boy is epileptic and a slow learner. He believes everything that mom and step dad tell him.

My husband and I do not talk bad about there mom or step dad..we want the kids to realize that it isn’t normal and that they can come and talk to us. We encourage the kids to make there own decisions and feel what ever it is that they feel about there mom and step dad. There have been so many times that they have bad mouthed us, degraded us to the kids ect..The kids do have a half brother.. which they are pretty much guilted into babysitting when they say they dont want to babysit. The girl.. just about everyday tells us that she doesn’t want to live with them anymore and don’t want to go home. We can’t call her mom and tell her this… she thinks we put her up to it and we don’t. We tell her “Ok..call your mom and tell her” she then tells us.. I can’t because mom will just get mad at me and start yelling. She doesn’t want to be away from her mom all the time.. but says she don’t want to live with her. They told the kids that the reason we are selling our home is because we don’t want to pay our bills. ( the real reason is because my father in law passed away of prostate cancer and my mother in law needs our help) Now how can he be so mean and nasty about a situation like that?

The mother has not met any of the 2 kid’s teachers in 3 years. She went to one meeting (which she was late) in 3 years. She doesn’t even question why the school calls step mom about school issues. My husband and I provide for the kids 100%. Clothes, school activities, even activities on her weekend, we don’t complain about this to the kids.. we don’t want them to feel bad.. and they still trash us. They tell the kids.. your dad and step mom have both had the same job for 15 years and i know they make good money…(he knows because he worked the same place for one week and got fired for lieing about being a felon) so whatever you guys need or want.. go to them not us because we don’t have any money for you. We have been told on several ocasions.. that there was no food in the house. And when we drop them off.. mom says.. watch the baby i am going to take a nap ( mom don’t work and has been in and out of the hospital for surgery infections) and fend for yourself for dinner.. How can they “fend” for themselves when there is no food?

I’ve recently reported all this to the childrens services agency.

Should we tell the kids that we got a lawyer to take custody? Or should we wait until mom is served?
We have a lot of things that has been said and done on paper or blog… should we take all of this to the lawyer?
We have phone messages.
Does the events need dates and times.. some have that and some do not…? I’m assuming that whatever information we can provide to the lawyer is best.

A: Don’t say a word to the children. Let the mother be served and then let her spill her bile to them. And then go have a chit chat with your lawyer about the concept of parental alienation (you can look it up on wikipedia). And yes, take all your evidence (paper, blog, phone messages, etc.) to the lawyer. He will need them and he will need to interview the children too.

And don’t forget to mention that the step-dad likes to walk in to his step-daughter’s bedroom while she is changing. (By the way, what was the step-dad convicted for? By any chance was it a sex crime?) You should find out what felonies he has committed as the safety of a 13 year old girl is at stake! And I nearly forgot, the stepdad is not a legal guardian. He can’t stop you from taking the children on visitation when you show up as he has no authority to do so. The sheriff should have known that.

Q: Survive in America DIE in Europe!!! Just how much better is American MEDICINE?? ALOT!!!!!?
READ THIS>>> Die in Britain, Survive In The US

James Bartholomew

The Spectator

Which is better — American or British medical care? If a defender of the National Health Service wants to win the argument against a free market alternative, he declares, ‘You wouldn’t want healthcare like they have in America, would you?’

That is the knock-out blow. Everyone knows the American system is horrible. You arrive in hospital, desperately ill, and they ask to see your credit card. If you haven’t got one, they boot you out. It is, surely, a heartless, callous, unthinkable system. American healthcare is unbridled capitalism, red in the blood of the untreated poor.

For goodness’ sake, the American system is so bad that even Americans — plenty of them anyway, if not all — want to give it up. They want something more like the Canadian system or our own National Health Service. That is what Hillary Clinton wanted and there are still plenty of people like her around. Tony Judt, in a recent edition of the New York Review of Books, was damning about American medical care and glowing about European healthcare. Think of all the money that is wasted in America invoicing patients and administering lots of separate, independent hospitals.

At the same time, we can’t help being aware that back here in Britain the NHS is not exactly perfect. The waiting lists have come down, according to the government. They have probably come down somewhat in reality, too. But they still exist and, come to that, there is the worryingly high incidence of hospital infections. So is British healthcare better than American? Or the other way round? And how do you judge?

Let’s try the simple way first. Suppose you come down with one of the big killer illnesses like cancer. Where do you want to be — London or New York? In Lincoln, Nebraska or Lincoln, Lincolnshire? Forget the money — we will come back to that — where do you have the best chance of staying alive?

The answer is clear. If you are a woman with breast cancer in Britain, you have (or at least a few years ago you had, since all medical statistics are a few years old) a 46 per cent chance of dying from it. In America, your chances of dying are far lower — only 25 per cent. Britain has one of the worst survival rates in the advanced world and America has the best.

If you are a man and you are diagnosed as having cancer of the prostate in Britain, you are more likely to die of it than not. You have a 57 per cent chance of departing this life. But in America you are likely to live. Your chances of dying from the disease are only 19 per cent. Once again, Britain is at the bottom of the class and America at the top.

How about colon cancer? In Britain, 40 per cent survive for five years after diagnosis. In America, 60 per cent do. With cancer of the oesophagus, survival rates are low all round the world. In Britain, a mere 7 per cent of patients live for five years after diagnosis. In America, the survival rate is still low, but much better at 12 per cent.

The more one looks at the figures for survival, the more obvious it is that if you have a medical problem your chances are dramatically better in America than in Britain. That is why those who are rich enough often go to America, leaving behind even private British healthcare. One reason is wonderfully simple. In America, you are more likely to be treated. And going back a stage further, you are more likely to get the diagnostic tests which lead to treatment.

Fewer than one third of British patients who have had a heart attack are given beta-blocker drugs, whereas in America 75 per cent of patients are given them. In America, you are far more likely to have your heart condition diagnosed with an angiogram — a somewhat invasive but definitive test. You are far more likely to have your artery widened with life-saving angioplasty. In Britain not very long ago, a mere 1 per cent of heart attack victims had angioplasty. In America you are much more likely to have heart by-pass surgery. In 1996 British surgeons performed 412 heart by-passes for every million people in the population, less than a fifth of the 2,255 by-passes per million performed in the United States. America has many more lithotripsy units for treating kidney stones — 1.5 per million of population compared with 0.2 in Britain.

It is true that in America they overdo the diagnostic tests. In one hospital they did a CT head scan on absolutely everybody who came in complaining of a headache. Even some of the doctors began to think this might be over the top when they realised that only in 2 per cent of cases was anything found. But in Britain the problem is the other way round. Having any diagnostic test beyond an X-ray tends to be regarded as a rare, extravagant event, only to be done in cases of obvious, if not desperate, need.

Peggy, an American radiologist, came to Britain to meet her English boyfriend’s family. A pall fell over the visit when the boyfriend’s father found blood in his urine. He went to the local NHS hospital. Peggy knew that blood in the urine could mean something worryingly serious or could be utterly minor. A few tests could make things clear: a CT scan or cystoscopy for example. That would be routine in the US. But no such tests were done by the NHS hospital in Welwyn Garden City where the father was a patient.

Tests are underperformed in Britain: first, because there is a shortage of equipment and second, because the equipment is underused. Britain has half the CT scanners per million of population that America has (6.5 compared with 13.6). It also has half the MRI scanners (3.9 per million of population versus 8.1). In Britain these machines are generally used during business hours only, regardless of the fact that some are extremely expensive. At the Mayo Clinic in America, by contrast, an MRI scanner is in use around the clock.

And if you do get your X-ray scan in Britain, it may well be done with an old machine. Dr Colin Connolly carried out an audit on behalf of the World Health Organisation and found that over half of British X-ray machines were past their recommended safe time limit. Come to that, he found plenty of other machinery out of date, too. More than half of the anaesthetists’ machines needed replacing. Even the majority of operating tables were over 20 years old — double their safe life span.

Look at any proper measure of the capacity or success of a medical service and one finds, again and again, that America comes out better. In Britain 36 per cent of patients have to wait more than four months for non-emergency surgery. In the US a mere 5 per cent do. While in Britain the government celebrates if the waiting times get a bit lower, in America they don’t do waiting.

There are more American doctors per patient so, not surprisingly, patients have more time with their doctors. American patients also get to see specialists as a matter of routine whereas in Britain 40 per cent of cancer patients, for example, don’t see a cancer consultant. There are shortages of specialists in many areas of medicine in Britain.

The father of Peggy’s boyfriend had asthma that was getting worse. In America he would have been seen by an asthma specialist while in hospital. They would have thought it convenient to do any necessary tests while he was readily available. Not in Britain. The father lay in his hospital bed with breathing difficulties but still did not see a specialist. He was told the wait would be six weeks.

Peggy was surprised at how ‘accepting’ her boyfriend’s family was. She didn’t say too much because she did not want to come across as a pushy, arrogant American but she was thinking that ‘in America we’d go nuts if we were told we would have to wait six weeks to see a specialist. Expectations are so much higher.’ Shortly afterwards, her boyfriend’s father was discharged from hospital. Back home, before his appointment with a consultant came up, he died of an asthma attack.

‘Ah yes,’ comes the knowing response, ‘but what about the poor? The rich might get great care in America, but the good thing about the NHS is that everyone gets treated equally. The care is, in the hallowed phrase, “free at the point of delivery”.’

Before going into any detail, let us remember one thing: all those figures at the start about death rates from various forms of cancer were not just for the rich. They were for the whole population, poor included. That said, yes, it is true that American healthcare is expensive. It is true, too, that the financial burden on people is awesomely unequal; but not in the way you might expect. The seriously poor do not get the worst of it. They get treated for free.

They get Medicaid, the national subsidy for healthcare for the poor. Their treatment is paid for by the state and subsidised by the hospital, or rather its other patients and — if it is a for-profit hospital — the shareholders. The poor might not get showered with as many diagnostic tests as those with full insurance, but they get treated and without the delays that are normal in Britain.

No, the people who get the worst of the cost of the American healthcare system are not the poor. They are not the rich either, of course. Come to that, they are not the old, who are covered by Medicare, another government programme. And they are not the majority of people who are in jobs and have company health insurance.

The ones who face major problems are somewhere between middle-income and poor. They are the ones who are not earning enough to take out an insurance policy, or not one with a high limit on medical expenditure. So if they come down with an illness which requires a long — and therefore ruinously expensive — stay in hospital, their insurance may run out and they may have to sell their homes or even go bankrupt. Those who are temporarily unemployed, between jobs, are similarly vulnerable.

The numbers are not large in relation to the whole population. We are talking about a minority of the American population — figures of 35–45 million are mentioned — which is not insured and which is not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Of that minority only a small proportion will need fairly long-term hospital treatment. But financial disaster can happen and sometimes does. People lose their homes, their savings, everything. Half the bankruptcies in America are people who had previously been ill. In Britain the system might kill you. In America the system will keep you alive but might bankrupt you.

So there is no doubt that the American system is lousy in certain ways. Actually it is lousy in lots of ways. The insurance policies that cover most people are extremely expensive. They can cost as much as $8,000 a year. Part of the problem is that each state dictates what must be in such policies, thus raising the cost and reducing the competition among providers. A young man can be obliged to pay for a policy which insures him against getting pregnant. State interference means that people cannot easily get the kind of insurance they would really like and which could lead to the most economical healthcare. That could be insurance with a large ‘excess’ — offering coverage against real disasters but not against regular bills for ordinary visits to a doctor.

The tax rules in America are also highly favourable to insurance provided through a company, but offer little of the same advantages to anyone taking out insurance personally. That gives rise to the ‘between jobs’ period of risk of falling ill.

There is much that is wrong with American healthcare. The inflated cost is boosted by restricted entry into the medical profession. It has been pushed up by the courts which have given crippling damages for medical negligence. The doctors have to insure themselves against such damages and so the insurance premiums they pay are huge. Doctors can only pay these by charging high fees. The risk of being sued is also an important reason why American doctors would rather give you too many tests than too few.

Let’s face it, the American system is rotten. It is not even a system. It is a hotch-potch. Most hospital provision is by not-for-profit, private hospitals. But the biggest buyer of medical care is the US government. Through Medicaid (for the poor) and Medicare (for the old) and other schemes, the government pays for 45 per cent of all healthcare. (The British assumption that American healthcare consists of an unfettered free market could not be more wrong.)

Most British people do not realise that the non-private hospitals in America are not run by the federal government. They are local government hospitals. The San Francisco General is run by the City of San Francisco. And another unexpected thing for Brits is that even in such local government hospitals treatment is not free to those who can afford it. (Incidentally, all sorts of American hospitals — especially the not-for-profit ones — receive large sums of cash from charitable benefactors.) And if you think all the above is confusing, that is hardly even the beginning of the bewildering diversity and contradictions of American healthcare. It is a muddle.

The British system was a muddle, too, until Aneurin Bevan came along in 1945. As minister of health, he set about unmuddling it. We, too, used to have local government (‘municipal’) hospitals until he took them over. He took over the charitable hospitals too, like St Mary’s and Moorfields and many other famous ones. He made it not confusing at all. What could be simpler than the central government being in charge of everything? Over time, the government put itself in charge of all the doctors, too. So all was made simple and clear.

But the curious thing is that the new, improved, simple state system of Britain does not work as well as the American muddle. You have a better chance of living to see another day in the American mishmash non-system with its sweet pills of charity, its dose of municipal care and large injection of rampant capitalist supply (even despite the blanket of over-regulation) than in the British system where the state does everything. It is not that America is good at running healthcare. It is just that British state-run healthcare is so amazingly, achingly, miserably and mortally incompetent.

James Bartholomew’s book, The Welfare State We’re In is published by Politico’s (£18.99).

A: No ones interested

Q: I was just wondering how many people out there were concerned about this..?
Were you aware of this.. and what have you done to help? I was just curious, please no rude comments…

Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water if left in the sun, heated up, or reused several times.
Production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet our demand for bottled water takes the
equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil (not including transportation costs). That equals the
amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles in the U.S. each year. Around the world,
bottling water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic…each year.
It can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself.
On a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.
The EPA sets much more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA does for the bottled stuff.
This while Americans spend about $16 billion a year on
bottled water.
It is estimated that some 1 million seabirds and 100,000 other marine animals including turtles, whales and countless fish are killed as a result of plastic litter every year.
Japanese scientists testing ocean water and sea sand have found widespread contamination with high levels
bisphenol A, a chemical used to make plastic that’s able to mimic the female hormone estrogen in living things.
Its presence in sea water comes from the breakdown of the plastic trash being dumped into the sea. BPA is
man-made and does not occur naturally in the environment.
The researchers took samples at more than 200 sites, mainly on the coasts around North America and
Southeast Asia. They detected the chemical along the shorelines of 20 countries and in every batch of water
or sand tested. The lowest levels detected by the Japanese scientists were already at least six times higher than the limit
being considered by Environment Canada.
Worry over BPA water contamination is relatively new, and few standards exist to protect wildlife from
becoming overloaded with the chemical and say it’s too soon to suggest people should avoid going to the beach.
Because BPA is able to stick to substances, the highest levels detected were in sand, at a staggering 28,000
times Environment Canada’s proposed limit for water. Dr. vom Saal, a major authority on hormones, is worried
that people going to the beach could be exposed to BPA and either absorb it through their skin while swimming
or from sand. He said it was “a scary finding that the levels in the ocean could already be at levels where you
would not want to swim … This is shocking.”
The Canadian government has announced that it views BPA as a toxic substance because of concerns the
chemical could contaminate wildlife and is a possible human health threat, although the government still
allows its use in consumer products such as tin cans, which contain an liner made from it, based on a view
that exposures aren’t high enough to cause harm, eventhough independent researchers have linked BPA to
a wide range of possible human health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, cancer (breast, prostate and uterine),
cardiovascular disease and asthma, sometimes at levels below Canada’s current safe exposure standard and this
pollutant is constantly being replenished by a continuous supply of new plastic being added to the oceans.
An example of how much plastic is floating around in the oceans, include a huge patch in the middle of the
Pacific that is twice the size of Texas, and these products will certainly constitute a new global ocean contamination
for long into the future.”

A: Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. If you’re really interested in learning more, check out the book Cradle-to-Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Basically, the big thing that I do which helps a little is I bring my own bag to the store and try to buy biodegradable plastic when possible.

A crazy added note, I live in El Salvador and have worked with Red Cross where they teach people to “purify” their water by putting it in plastic bottles in the sun on their roof. Nuts.

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