Washington Post: 'Socialized Medicine' Snake Oil

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201429.html

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page A19

It turns out that Rudy Giuliani knows even less about health care than I thought. Not only are his figures about prostate cancer survival rates in the United States and Britain wildly misleading, but he's also wrong on his general point: that a single-payer system, of the kind that Republicans call "socialized" medicine, inevitably would deliver inferior care.

Untrue, according to a major study conducted this year by the Commonwealth Fund, a respected New York foundation with a track record in health care stretching back to 1918. Not that candidate Giuliani is likely to pay attention -- he won't even back down from his ridiculous assertion that he was nearly twice as likely to survive his bout with prostate cancer in the United States as he would be in Britain, although death rates from the disease in the two countries are basically the same.

For Giuliani, it appears, all that's needed to establish truth is a simple assertion: "Because I said so."

The Commonwealth Fund and Harris Interactive surveyed adults in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Britain -- all of which have single-payer health-care systems -- and the United States. The methodology appears sound, the margin of error is less than three percentage points and the results are striking.

Respondents in the United States were less likely than those in the other countries to say their health-care system "works well" -- and much more likely to see a need for "fundamental" change or a total overhaul. With 47 million Americans lacking health insurance, I suppose that shouldn't be much of a surprise.

What did surprise me was the wealth of data refuting the general criticism that single-payer health-care systems are cold, impersonal and, well, uncaring. According to the survey, 80 percent of Americans have a regular doctor whom they usually see. That sounds pretty good, until you learn that 84 percent of Canadians, 88 percent of Australians, 89 percent of New Zealanders and Britons, 92 percent of Germans, and 100 percent of Dutch respondents surveyed said they had regular doctors. Marcus Welby, M.D., seems to have emigrated.

FULL story at link.

[iamjoy]

1. I Thought His Comment Smelled

when he said the bit about he was more likely to survive in the US than had be been in Britian, I was suspicious

I thought - hmmm, a person in the US with money or good health insurance probably is more likely to survive cancer than one in Britian. On the other hand, a person in the US without money or health insurance is far more likely to die.

I didn't realize how wildly wrong he was.


But you know, fighting terrorism is what really matters, right? Let's see, in the past six years, what are the deaths in the US from cancer vs. deaths in the US from terrorism?

[jimshoes]

2. The Washington Post and the neocons

have taken the "art" of sophistry to a never before dreamed of low. They have in fact given sophistry a bad name. (As if it were ever a noble endeavor)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. kick for anti-ghoulishness