First of all, the invasion of Normandy was in no way contemporaneous with the German invasion of France; the two events were years apart.

Second, and more importantly, Americans were not the Lone Rangers the doctor ignorantly portrays.

In fact, D-Day began with a late-night air assault by landing of American airborne troops — along with a GREATER NUMBER of airborne troops from Britain, Canada, and the Free French.

There was then the famous beach landings to which the doctor refers — and again gets wrong. The U.S. committed about 78,000 troops to the D-Day effort. The British, Canadian and Free French, far from sitting idly by as in the doctor’s fantasy, committed MORE troops than than the U.S.

It is also worth noting that Canada and Britain started fighting against Nazi aggression in 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. The brave and mighty Americans, far from leading the way in the fight for freedom, avoided the fight altogether until late 1941.

Finally, the doctor’s implication that Canada is free to lavish funds on health care because it hides under the American umbrella is grossly misleading and wrong. As every study has shown, Canada spends LESS on health care than the U.S., both per capita and as a percentage of GDP, yet provides care for all residents and has better outcomes.

Who did the United States rely on to place its Early Warning defense system.

The idea that somehow the United States was defending Europe altruistically is basically a false argument. After WWII, even in free elections, the communist parties were winning majority seats in the parliaments of many European elections. As usual the United States kept military forces in Europe, often against the will of the electorate in those nations, to protect our own business interests and our own economic markets, not to defend Europeans from anything they were all that concerned about to begin with.

One of the primary causes of the Great Depression was that the U.S. industrial capacity had outstripped our internal markets. Everybody in America had purchased everything they could purchase or use.

After WWII, the United States economy plunged right back into recession. We needed Europe as a market for American goods.

That was our reason for “defending Europe” Indeed, we defended them so much that we had the government in France throw the party that won the most votes in the first national election out of office and denied the seats they had won in that election, It was the French Communist Party that won 25 percent of the seats in their parliament, the largest single party to win seats. Combined with the seats won by the Socialists, the far left had a majority vote. That would not do for U.S. policy makers so we had the right wing militarists remove them from office.

This occurred all over the world. In Iran the U.S overthrew the legitimately elected Mossadegh. In Guatemala we had the military remove Arbenz and in Vietnam we simply cancelled the agreed on free elections of 1956.

This defense argument is one that is usually given, but is also usually false. The people in most of the countries we were “defending” didn’t want us to be defending them. In fact all we were doing were defending pro American political parties that could not legitimately win free election in countries all over the world

Imagine if people actually had some fundamental knowledge of the facts before pretending to knowledge.

In 2007, the USA spent 16 % of its GDP on health care. Its military budget was 4 %. (which, incidentally is half a trillion, not “trillions”) The nearest OECD country in health care spending is Switzerland, with just over 11 %.

The difference in health care spending between the US, and the second worst performer is bigger than the US military expenses.
The average first world country spent 9%. The difference between the US medical expenses and the average is nearly twice the US military budget.

Of course, saying that “That money could easily be spent paying for UHC” isn’t wrong. The US government already has an expense of almost 9 % of GDP on health care. The money already paid in taxes could pay for UHC.

Of course, countries such as France and the UK already spend about 2,5 % of GDp on their military budgets. So the difference between the US and UK military budgets is 1,5% of GDP. The difference in health care spending is 5 times as large.

US medical overspending is so large that it dwarfs the military budget into insignificance.

Doctors in UK, Canada and US are all against UHC. Patients, on the other hand, are in the majority in favour of UHC.

The fact is, UHC does place some real conditions on doctors. It becomes the determinant in what treatments doctors may offer. Doctors do not like this. They would like to treat you the way they see fit, and any universal system will get in their way in some fashion.

However, none of the anti-UHC doctors I have heard have anything to say for those who are not insured. The fact is, for those people, any system at all, even the least efficient system out there is better than what they have, which is NOTHING. I think it behooves the US to come up with the BEST system, not to sit around making excuses for the worst system (no system at all, and yet still more costly per person than any of the UHC systems out there).

Timeline of US and Canada’s involvement in WWII is below.

5 September 1939 – US formally becomes a neutral country (this means they chose NOT TO ENTER THE WAR).

10 September 1939 – Canada Declares war on Germany

23 December 1939 – The first Canadian troops land in Britain

13 November 1941 – US Congress revises the Neutrality Act of 1939 to allow US merchant ships to unload munitions in British ports

7 December 1941 – Japanese launch surprise attack on U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor [United States]

8 December 1941 – United States declares war on Japan [United States]

11 December 1941 – Germany and Italy declare war on United States

27 January 1943 – American 8th Air Force conducts its first raid against Germany HOW MANY YEARS AFTER CANADA?

6 June 1944 – D-Day, the Allied Invasion of Normandy, France [France]

1944

June 6: 14,000 Canadians land on Normandy beaches apart of ‘Operation Neptune.’ 1,000 Canadian casualties.

June 8-12: Canadians repel fierce German counter-attacks and hold the Normandy beach head

As to who protects the Canadian borders? The answer is Canadians! Have you ever been to Canada? Were you questioned by a US Immigration and Customs officer that allowed you into Canada? Use some common sense if you have any. You probably also think 911 terrorists were let into the US by Canada – The US Customs and Immigration Service is the correct answer.

If a UHC system is the panacea, then why does the medical literature still detail “health care disparities” in these countries?

The British Heart Foundation discusses disparities in care in their current document on CHD (www.heartstats.org).
(see here: http://www.heartstats.org/temp/2008.Chaptersp1.pdf)

An interesting comment I saw on a page for the British National Health Service, while perusing their entry on CHD:

“If Coronary Heart disease is the ‘UK’s biggest killer’ why does it take so long to get a first appointment to see a cardiologist?
Surely, on the basis that ‘prevention is better than cure’ it would be more efficient to quickly diagnose and treat cardiac problems thus reducing the number of heart attacks and the resultant strain on ambulance and A&E services!!
My current wait to see a cardiologist is my first contact with the NHS for 10 years and quite frankly I’m not impressed!!!”

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Coronary-heart-disease/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Oh, so the inequalities do exist. It was a breathtaking lie a few posts ago.

You’re right, Med Student “….The UK has a similar obesity epidemic, worse smoking statistics, etc…..” and lifespan is longer. In a population. Population statistics have little to do with the healthcare you will be providing. You don’t treat populations, you treat individuals. Africans have a shorter life span than whites, and it marches through if that African is an Afro-American or an Afro-Briton. The Japanese have a longer lifespan even when they move to the USA and their progeny are born stateside. For me, when I’m looking for healthcare, meaning I’m sick, I want the place with the best chance of getting better. Lifespan statistics reflect population genetics.

As pointed out before, if one wants to play the game of comparing populations, at least compare apples with apples. European Scandinavians compared to American Scandinavians. African Americans compared to Afro Brits and native Africans. Japanese versus Japanese-Americans.

When their own statistics show inequality of outcome for certain deprived populations in the UK, it’s called a result of poverty, ignorance, drug abuse, deprivation, the inevitable problems associated with poverty. Same population in America, it’s the evil Capitalist system.

Of course we can’t lecture anyone else. Not that it stops others from lecturing us.

Interesting point talldoc – “…..Almost any new agent takes approximately 2-3 years from licensing to approval even if it is approved by NICE (except in breast cancer where hordes of middle class women have to assault politicians physically and verbally to get their way)…….”

Political pressures continue to influence healthcare. Not that I wish breast cancer on anyone, but cancer is cancer, and it’s not the only thing that harms women (and a few men for that matter, Richard Roundtree comes to mind).

To place all the blame of a broken healthcare system on obese patient is unfair and a gross oversimplification.

A point I believe I made in the next line of my comment!

As for examples:

Drugs:
No access to bevacizumab for patients with colorectal lung or breast cancer.
No access to cetuximab or panitumumab in colorectal cancer Limited access to erlotinib for lung cancer.
Limited or no access to sorafenib in hepatocellular cancer.
Limited access to sorafenib/sunitinib for renal cancer.
Very limited access to temozolomide for brain tumours.
No access to lapatinib for breast cancer
No access to pemetrexed in non small cell lung cancer.

Almost any new agent takes approximately 2-3 years from licensing to approval even if it is approved by NICE (except in breast cancer where hordes of middle class women have to assault politicians physically and verbally to get their way). Then another 3 months before it will be funded, once of course you have made an individual business case for introduction for each regimen in each individual hospital.

And don’t get me started on radiotherapy where there is a major shortfall incapacity and therefore unaccepotable waiting times or inappropriate fractionation in wide swathes of the country