I thought I'd heard all the arguments in favor of universal health care, but this one is new to me. And it's a powerful one.
I found it reading about a study from Canada showing that people who live in walkable neighborhoods are much less likely to become diabetic.
In passing, the researchers noted:
As a side note, this study is also a great eye-opener to the type of research that’s possible within a nationalized healthcare system, where you don’t have to account for health outcomes skewed by access to care (in the U.S., amid all the other variables stacked against their health, low-income families also often lack insurance), and where it’s possible to comprehensively cross-reference health data with metrics from other sources like the census. As the researchers explain: “Health records for each individual in our cohort were linked anonymously across datasets using an encrypted version of their health card number.”
The researchers were further able to link this health data to the postal codes of individual residences, which were used in determining walkability.
Get that? Having everyone covered by the same health plan makes it much easier to do important research that would be virtually impossible (or at least far more costly and less reliable) in the U.S. Which would make the task of finding out which treatments work and which don't a whole lot easier, potentially saving enormous amounts of money.
Oh darn, I forgot: we have the best health care system in the world. Never mind.