February 9, 2007

Market-Based Health System Leading to Fewer Cancer Deaths

One of the key benefits of a market-based health care system is quality improvement. Nowhere can that benefit be better seen than in wins in the war against cancer.

• For the second year in a row, the number of American deaths due to cancer fell.
   
• All those dollars invested in research, treatment, wellness and innovation are paying off. This good news about patients increasingly beating cancer gives us one more measure of quality of life and health in America – and of America’s private sector health care system.

With fewer Americans dying from cancer for two years straight, experts believe this may be a trend that's started.

• Cancer deaths fell more than 3,000 in 2004.  This occurred for those with breast cancer, prostate and colorectal, and lung cancer among men.
   
• Experts attribute this trend to less cigarette smoking, better treatments and more cancer screening.
   
• Heart disease and cancer lead as causes of death in the United States. More than half a million Americans will die from cancer this year, out of 1.4 million patients who will contract cancer.
   
• The cancer death rate has fallen since 1991, though the number of deaths has continued to rise.  The rate's been dropping about 1 percent a year.  In 2003, some 369 fewer patients died from cancer than the year before. The latest figures sped the drop in the cancer death rate to 2 percent.

Americans are living longer, healthier lives.  That includes from surviving cancer.

• The private U.S. health care system has stepped up cancer prevention and early detection. This is paying off.
   
• Our market-based health care system has emphasized measures like routine screening.  It's no accident, then, that we're seeing results.
   
• Both industry and government have invested millions of dollars in cancer treatments and cures. These are a tougher nut to crack and slower in coming, but an important element of the fight to make more cancer patients cancer survivors.
   
• No one should discount the value of health care dollars in terms of quality and length of life.  Every cancer survivor appreciates the value of that investment, because each day of life after a cancer diagnosis is of inestimable value to them and their loved ones.

Health care leaders applaud the latest cancer survival results.  Achieving success is what it's all about.  Any progress against one of the top killers in America is welcome, and this marks real progress. The ability of the private-sector health system to innovate is a critical part of this picture.