Misleading Studies

John Stossel takes on the claims that America's health care system is worse than others in the world. He makes a couple of extremely obvious points that expose the flaws in the much-quoted 2000 World Health Organization study. That is one of the studies that is often quoted by the advocates of socialized medicine.

The WHO judged a country's quality of health on life expectancy. But that's a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That's not a health-care problem.

Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada.

When you adjust for these "fatal injury" rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.

Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy.

Another reason the U.S. didn't score high in the WHO rankings is that we are less socialistic than other nations. What has that got to do with the quality of health care? For the authors of the study, it's crucial. The WHO judged countries not on the absolute quality of health care, but on how "fairly" health care of any quality is "distributed." The problem here is obvious. By that criterion, a country with high-quality care overall but "unequal distribution" would rank below a country with lower quality care but equal distribution.

It's when this so-called "fairness," a highly subjective standard, is factored in that the U.S. scores go south.

As Stossel points out, people from all over the world come to the US for treatment. You never hear about Americans traveling to other countries like that. Stossel also demolishes - as many people have - the grossly misleading (but much quoted) figure of "45 million uninsured" in America. Among other things that inflated number includes people who are in this country illegally and those who can afford insurance, have it available if they wanted it, but choose not to get it. There is also a large portion of those uninsured who already qualify for government programs but have not enrolled. Take all of those groups out of the number and that huge figure shrinks to a very small number.

And if you think socialized medicine is the answer, perhaps you're asking the wrong question. Why not ask what your chances of surviving cancer are? Or whether you'll be forced to give birth on a bathroom floor because the doctors don't have the training to deal with deliveries?

Funny how changing the question changes the answer.

Other Links to this Post

1. Blogs of War — Wednesday, 22 August , 2007 @ 7:50 am

2. Blogs of War: Need to Know 8.22.2007 - A New Sniper Rifle, Gay Republicans, Democratic Rage, Bravery, CIA, and Healthcare — Wednesday, 22 August , 2007 @ 8:14 am