Truthdig: Paying More and Dying Sooner

Paying More and Dying Sooner



Posted on Nov 13, 2007
By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON—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 earlier 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 U.S. than he would have been in the U.K., despite the fact that 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 3 percent and the results are striking.

Respondents in the United States were less likely than those in any of 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. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071113_paying_more_and_dying_sooner/

Great comments. I'm so annoyed with the Republican party's use of buzz words and their followers' ability to eat them up. We're not Socialists, so it's not socialized medicine. The press should stress this incorrect tag on universal health care, but instead they encourage it. Besides, what's wrong with making sure everyone gets the health care they need? In a country as rich as this, health care should be fundamental.

Though rich Republicans will say they don't want "Big Government" or taxes raised to pay for other's health care, the middle class and poor have no good reason to vote Republican, even on moral grounds. This belief that Repubican politicians have more values (another buzz word) has been disproving time and again.

If you ask middle class and poor Republican voters do they want socialized medicine, of course they'll say know. Socialization's for the Ruskies! But ask them if they want affordable health care and they'll say yes. I hope Democrats will push this point home as the election nears.

Commu6

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