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Irredeemably Flawed?
In making the case that the American health care system is irredeemably flawed, advocates for a national plan sometimes play fast and loose with the facts. They overlook major difficulties in foreign systems while exaggerating the problems with our own.
In “Sicko,” Moore cites a study released in 2000 by the World Health Organization that ranks the U.S. health care system 37th in the world — behind countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates and barely ahead of Slovenia. But the study has serious problems in evaluating the success of the American system. As Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute notes, the WHO report utilizes subjective criteria such as “fairness” which are not strictly related to a country’s health care system. For example, one of the criteria is “tobacco control.” Others include the lack of a sufficiently progressive tax system. Moreover, the WHO study penalizes the U.S. for adopting Health Savings Accounts and for the fact that patients pay out of pocket for health care. Other WHO criteria, such as life expectancy, are heavily distorted by factors such as violent crime, tobacco use, and obesity—factors resulting from behavior, individual choice, and other influences unrelated to the functioning of the health care system.
Advocates for a national plan also skew U.S. infant mortality data, which are often used in cross-country comparisons. For example, in the U.S., some high-risk pregnancies have a greater chance of being brought to term using the latest medical technologies. However, some of these infants die soon after birth, boosting the infant-mortality rate. But in European countries such as Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, fetuses must weigh at least one pound to count as a live birth; in Switzerland, the fetus must be at least a foot long to be counted.
In “Sicko,” Moore cites low infant mortality rates in Cuba, suggesting that the Communist nation is a model for the U.S. to adopt. But Tanner notes that Cuba has “one of the world’s highest abortion rates, meaning that many babies with health problems that could lead to early deaths are never brought to term.”” READ MORE AT http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2008/05/31/the-pitfalls-of-socialized-medicine/
In making the case that the American health care system is irredeemably flawed, advocates for a national plan sometimes play fast and loose with the facts. They overlook major difficulties in foreign systems while exaggerating the problems with our own.
In “Sicko,” Moore cites a study released in 2000 by the World Health Organization that ranks the U.S. health care system 37th in the world — behind countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates and barely ahead of Slovenia. But the study has serious problems in evaluating the success of the American system. As Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute notes, the WHO report utilizes subjective criteria such as “fairness” which are not strictly related to a country’s health care system. For example, one of the criteria is “tobacco control.” Others include the lack of a sufficiently progressive tax system. Moreover, the WHO study penalizes the U.S. for adopting Health Savings Accounts and for the fact that patients pay out of pocket for health care. Other WHO criteria, such as life expectancy, are heavily distorted by factors such as violent crime, tobacco use, and obesity—factors resulting from behavior, individual choice, and other influences unrelated to the functioning of the health care system.
Advocates for a national plan also skew U.S. infant mortality data, which are often used in cross-country comparisons. For example, in the U.S., some high-risk pregnancies have a greater chance of being brought to term using the latest medical technologies. However, some of these infants die soon after birth, boosting the infant-mortality rate. But in European countries such as Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, fetuses must weigh at least one pound to count as a live birth; in Switzerland, the fetus must be at least a foot long to be counted.
In “Sicko,” Moore cites low infant mortality rates in Cuba, suggesting that the Communist nation is a model for the U.S. to adopt. But Tanner notes that Cuba has “one of the world’s highest abortion rates, meaning that many babies with health problems that could lead to early deaths are never brought to term.”” READ MORE AT http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2008/05/31/the-pitfalls-of-socialized-medicine/