That study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week that compared the health of U.S. and British citizens spoke volumes about America's health care system.

Researchers from the U.S. and England were just trying to discover why poor people are less healthy than rich, but were astounded when their studies showed that poor people in England are actually as healthy as rich people in America and healthier when it comes to cases of diabetes, blood pressure and cancer.

But even more astounding to them was when comparing all white Brits with white Americans, regardless of income, the Americans have more diabetes, more heart disease, more respiratory problems and many more other diseases as well.

"It was a bit of a big shock," Michael Marmot of University College in London told National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." "I just didn't imagine we'd find it consistently across the board, with worse health in the United States compared with England."

Jim Smith of the Rand Corp. and one of the Americans who worked on the research added that, at first, no one wanted to believe the data.

But the results were quite clear it just isn't clear why.

For example, smoking rates are about the same for both countries. The British have a higher rate of heavy drinking, but more Americans are obese.

Yet, the per person spending on health care in the United States is nearly double that of England, which, of course, has a national health care system that covers every citizen of the country.

None of the researchers was willing to say it, but the fact that Americans have an enormous number of people without health insurance can't be overlooked as a cause. Tens of millions of our citizens even those who are working full-time jobs go without basic health care because of the high out-of-pocket costs, often until it's too late.

New Yorker magazine a few months ago detailed, for example, how many Americans go without dental care and how rotting teeth alone cause huge health problems for people as they grow older. Yet we continue to rely on a system that's been pieced together over the years and continues to work for fewer and fewer people.

We pride ourselves for being the richest and most advanced country in the world.

Meanwhile, our health care system, while being the most expensive in the world, is falling further and further behind.

Dave Zweifel is editor of The Capital Times. E-mail to: dzweifel@madison.com

© 2006 The Capital-Times

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