Healthcare ‘Myths and Mantras’

George Rebane

The national healthcare debate will again kick into high gear as Congress reconvenes in a week or so.  Both sides have been accusing each other of lying about what Obamacare will entail.  The Left’s argument is the standard ‘that is a lie/misrepresentation/myth’, and then they leave it there as if denials and counter-charges in and of themselves complete the argument.  By necessity, the Right has taken its argument to higher ground, and refutes the promises of socialized medicine with reason and hard facts, which, if false, should give the Left devastating openings to win the debate.  Since this has not occurred, one must conclude that the only ammunition left to the Left is liberal application of speed and fog to get Obamacare passed before more people begin to smell a rat.

As an example of this, please consider ‘Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care’ in the 31aug09 WSJ by Drs Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband, practicing physicians who are also on the Harvard Medical School faculty.  Their piece addresses some of the egregious claims of Obamacare.  One of them is the oft-repeated but never expanded myth that the US’s 37th place in the WHO rankings results from some undebatable clinical numbers.  Not so, it is actually a number that comes from a formula containing a lot of subjective non-medical factors.  As the authors go on to explain –

The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 37th In the world in quality. This is another frightening statistic. It is also not accurate. Yet the head of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, a powerful organization influencing both the government and private insurers in defining quality of care, has stated this as fact.

The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. No. 1 among all countries in "responsiveness." Responsiveness has two components: respect for persons (including dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to make decisions about their own care), and client orientation (including prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider). This is what Americans rightly understand as quality care and worry will be lost in the upheaval of reform. Our country's composite score fell to 37 primarily because we lack universal coverage and care is a financial burden for many citizens.

The Left’s denial that the nation’s healthcare costs will skyrocket and health services will be rationed flies in the face of the worldwide experience and elementary reason.  The creation of a nationalized healthcare where the user’s price for service is decoupled from the cost of its delivery is simply the creation of another commons.  And as we know, all commons are ultimately destroyed by their consumers, either directly or indirectly by exhausting the external means to keep them viable.

This is the most elementary part of behavioral economics and is definitely not rocket science.  If people need it and it’s ‘free’, they will not hesitate to overuse it.  Everyone knows that the (socialist) system will punish them for altruistically holding back ‘for the good of the collective’.  No, you get in there and get it while the gettin’s good, because you know that sooner or later the goods/services will either stop or be rationed.  And all this happens while the costs skyrocket and the government is picking your other pocket so it can continue funding what is left of the commons.

The Left, with considerable success, counts on the inattention and/or extreme stupidity of the electorate now resident in the land (and that’s another story) to gloss over the fundamental weakness of such price/cost decouplings embedded in every socialist scheme.  Ignorant people and liars will always tell you that THIS TIME it will be different.

Comments

[Mikey McD]

Great piece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPADFNKDhGM&feature=player_embedded

[Mikey McD]

Challenge for Chris Dodd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YST_kXukYdA&feature=player_embedded

[George Rebane]

Thanks Mikey - these are both great videos that amplify my short update on socialized medicine. Milton Friedman's reasoning is classic, and the summary of the British National Health Service by a Brit demolishes the pro-NHS propaganda that today is flooding the US. The truth may not make you free, but it will go a far piece to significantly reduce your costs.

[Hank Reardon]

Buyers remorse? http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_month_by_month