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I don't think the wait for cancer patients is 4 months. Even in Portugal you'll get treated and we're much poorer with a much more deficient health system.

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This leads me to wonder...

Do cancer survival rates differ in countries with government health care vs. private?

Looks like the US has some of the highest rates across the board: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cancer-survival-r...

I am not sure if 5-year survival rates are the best metric for this. Survival rate may be because of better outcomes or earlier detection. Is there any statistics that normalize for this?

Yes.[0] But I'm unsure whether this is due to private vs public healthcare. My guess is that it has more to do with how developed the medical industry is in the country. Size of the country probably matters as well.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/articles/concord-2....

5 year survival rates may be heavily influenced by detection rates. If country A detects my lung cancer at 55 and country B at 59 and either way I die at 60 - I’m no better off in A. Maybe worse.

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