This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, May 12, 2009. I'm Caleb Brown. The American Cancer Society is pushing for national health care, given five-year survival rates for cancer in the United States

and in countries with national health care systems,

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Mike Tanner asks why. Why? The American Cancer Society has decided to launch the largest advertising campaign in the organization's history.

But it's not going to be to tell people to get screened for

colon or prostate or breast cancer. It's not even going to be to tell people to stop

smoking or to eat better. Instead it's going to be a massive campaign to

convince people to support government-run health care.

And that strikes me as being one of the most foolish uses of anti-cancer spending that we've ever seen in this country.

Put into context what the health outcomes are for people with cancer under national

health care systems and in the United States and other not so national health care systems.

There's no doubt that if you look at things like five-year survival rates for all types of cancer combined or for even the most prevalent types of cancer, the

survival rates are better in the United States than they are elsewhere in the world.

Now some people can quibble about these statistics and say

well we do more screening, others would counter with well we have a higher

incidents and that's why the screening picks them up, but the bottom line is

that if you come down with cancer, this is the country you want to be in.

Look, I'm a cancer survivor and I know the type of quality of treatment that you get in this country that's not available say in Canada or Britain.

Part of that number, five-year cancer survival rates, has to have something to do with the detection,

the point at which in the development of cancer it is detected.

Sure, an American Cancer Society for years has urged people to get screened.

You should get your mammograms, you should get a colon screening, and so on.

These things can have a significant impact both on prolonging life and on quality of life. But you know if we go to a type of national health care system where they have a global budget

...