American Healthcare vs. American Soccer
| Mon Jul. 20, 2009 7:56 AM PDT
Over the weekend Mitch McConnell told David Gregory that "we have the finest health care in the world." This is pretty standard Republican boilerplate, and it got me to wondering.
Has any Democrat ever said that "we have the worst health care in the world"? Why not? Sure, technically, you'd need to say "industrialized world" or some such, but aside from that it would be pretty accurate. Certainly more accurate than McConnell's formulation.
So why not say it? I can think of a few reasons. (a) Americans don't like to hear anyone telling them they aren't the best at anything. (b) It would require politicians to explain how it is that other countries do healthcare better and cheaper than us — and Americans really, really don't like to hear that France does something better than us. (c) Since most Americans have health insurance and get adequate care, it's a tough sell. (d) Democrats agree with McConnell.
I suppose there are other possible reasons too. But why nibble around the edges? Republicans are willing to straight out claim that we're the best, even though there's virtually no metric in which this is even remotely the case. It's as laughable as saying that America has the best soccer team in the world. So why aren't we willing to stretch things a bit and flatly say that virtually every advanced country offers better healthcare than we do? What's so hard about that?
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Comments
Republicans and health care
Submitted by kishin (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:18 AM PDT.
At least as big a question is why the news media never challenges these claims despite mountains of evidence they're not true. I think this is a job for Jon Stewart.
Clearly
Submitted by D R (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:30 AM PDT.
It's because most people know about sports, but most don't know about health care.
It's an old argument. Haven't you noticed that sportswriters and commentators are more accurate than other journalists? That they can talk numbers all day long and hold an audience?
People get involved and educated about sports, and part of that is that the media allows people to get involved and educated, allow genuine debate on the sports pages, and hold the writers accountable. A sportswriter saying something things too stupid (about sports) will get fired.
Anyway, you get the idea...
Politicians leverage the
Submitted by RZ (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:30 AM PDT.
Politicians leverage the common wisdom, and unfortunately on health care, the common wisdom is wrong at every turn. 'Best health care in the world' is one of those assumptions - wrong in 94 and wrong today. In fact, you could have a nice post asking people to list the canards that are driving the debate.
The one that drives me crazy is what the Democrats say - 'If you like the health insurance you have today, you will get to keep it.' I don't have that choice now! In the last four years:
1) My company changed health insurers.
2) I changed jobs, so I changed health insurers.
3) My new employer changed health insurers.
4) My new employer changed benefit plans with the same health insurer.
I don't recall being asked about any of those changes.
Healthcare
Submitted by kamajii on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:35 AM PDT.
Americans elected George Bush twice. After that, you're not looking for reasonable from them are you, Kevin.
We're much better at soccer
Submitted by ANM (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:42 AM PDT.
Actually it's not even close. The US soccer world ranking is currently 12, according to FIFA.
According to the WHO, our health care ranking is 37.
Mean vs. Average
Submitted by Sebastian (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:50 AM PDT.
It is a mean vs. average perception problem. A very large majority of Americans have really quite good health care. Certainly no worse than the UK.
But a significant minority of people (somewhere in the 15-20% range depending on how you measure it) have little to no health care.
So on average, health care in America sucks compared to other countries. But the mean is pretty good. So it is difficult to convince lots of people that we need a huge change.
MOST Americans
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 9:10 AM PDT.
"A very large majority of Americans have really quite good health care."
Not true. But they don't find that out until they actually need to use it. My hospital roommate who was being treated for a brain tumor had what should have been a gold-plated benefits package. He was a long-time professor in the California State system. But the second day I was there, I saw two women from the financial services office come in, draw the useless privacy curtain around him and inform him, "Sir, your insurance company has abandoned you." And they spent the next 20 minutes reading him his meager options before they packed him up and sent him home to die.
"Abandoned you". In what other advanced nation would that be allowed?
Median vs. mean
Submitted by Brock on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 9:29 AM PDT.
Right concepts, wrong terminology. The terminology you want is "median" vs. "mean".
The median is the value such that 50% of the population is greater, and 50% less. The mean is the arithmetical average, such as you use when computing your GPA: add all the values and divide by the population.
Heh
Submitted by Sebastian (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 11:06 AM PDT.
Oh good heavens, I knew that and still screwed it up. Yes, the median health care for the US is very good. But the average is bad (and so is the mean since average and mean are the same thing. Sigh).
For the non-mathematically inclined, which I am increasingly looking like:
More than half of Americans have excellent health care available to them.
A huge minority have almost no health care available to them.
So in non-math terms, if you say something like "the average American" you probably really mean something more like "most Americans" than a mathematical definition of average.
And you'd be right. But the state of those who don't have access to health care is awful. So the average sucks.
The problem with selling national health care is you need to bring up those who don't have it, without dramatically hurting the health care availability of those who do.
Credit where credit is due.
Submitted by R. Porrofatto (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:51 AM PDT.
McConnell lied and equivocated his answers, but I was surprised to see this follow-up on the part of Gregory, even if he did characterize it as the objection of an "expert" rather than hundreds of them along with the WHO:
MR. GREGORY: Well, but wait a minute. You, you say that we have the best healthcare system in the world, you say it as a matter of fact.
SEN. McCONNELL: Mm-hmm.
MR. GREGORY: But it seems to be a matter of debate. You just mentioned access. You've got 47 million people who are uninsured.
SEN. McCONNELL: Mm-hmm.
MR. GREGORY: And there are experts, including one expert who is now an Obama adviser, who actually writes about this idea that it's a myth that it's the best health care in the world.
SEN. McCONNELL: Mm-hmm.
MR. GREGORY: And this is what he wrote along with another expert last fall, saying: "It's a myth that America has the best health care in the world. The United States is number one only in one sense, the amount we shell out for health care. We have the most expensive system in the world per capita, but we lag many developed countries on virtually every health statistic you can name"; life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, death rate from prostate cancer, heart attack recovery. That's the best system in the world?
American Healthcare vs. American Soccer
Submitted by Eric Scharf (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:57 AM PDT.
Clearly, American opposition to universal healthcare has the same derivation as our disdain for soccer: someone has to LOSE.
You think this wasn't
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 8:59 AM PDT.
You think this wasn't tested? It has been, many many times. And we always find that when you say that to people, they don't believe you.
In fact, they find this observation so absurd and stupid that if you say this, they then rate everything else you say afterwards as less credible. If you said American healthcare was the worst in the world (or just plain bad) and then said the sky was blue, they'd look out a window and check.
It turns out that people see the miracle of folks walking around with hip replacements, and stop believing this "worst in the world" stuff (the old 'me or your lying eyes' issue). Oh, and also, it's kind of terrifying to think your family doctor who you love and trust is part of the world's worst health system considering your child's LIFE depends on him not sucking.
Sorry, but you say American healthcare is teh suck, and I find myself wondering why you are lying to me. It's like when a used car salesman tells me my Porsche is a terrible car...the follow-up is he offers to do me a favor by taking it off my hands.
Suggests a new way to sell universal care.
Submitted by Dave Fried (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 9:33 AM PDT.
Health care in the U.S. is great in the way things like segregated schools were "great" for white people. Things were fine for the majority of kids, who were white. They were awful for the minority of kids, who were black. But because a majority - and one that held most of the wealth and political power - was happy, there was no legislative progress.
The difference here is that, if you were white in the South during segregation, there was no chance of you ever waking up and finding out you'd become black. With health care, a huge number of people are teetering on the edge of being un- or under-insured.
Insured people are going to look at their current situation and say, "hey, I got great health care!" So telling them that the health care system sucks, as has been pointed out, won't work. What you could convince them of is the danger of them falling into that black hole of uninsured or under-insured people. Scare them with the [very real] possibility that due to job loss or extended illness they might lose their coverage, and end up in massive debt or dead because they can't get affordable care. If you can paint that picture vividly enough, and then offer them a safety net, they'd be much more likely to grasp onto the idea.
Also, you might try to play the "do you really like your job, or are you just in it for the benefits?" card. A lot of people would love to switch jobs or start their own businesses but can't because they couldn't afford health coverage/it wouldn't cover their conditions. Appeal to the entrepreneur or the family man/woman who wants to spend more time with the kids. These are the sort of appeals which are traditionally used by the GOP but I think they'd be very effective here coming from progressives.
You can absolutely use the badness of our system to motivate people, but it has to be done in the form of "we have a really great system for most people but *you* might suddenly find that *you* don't have access to it", rather than "the system stinks and we have to replace it with something better".
Honest Talk about Healthcare
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 9:33 AM PDT.
I'd be happy if they simply said 'as good as' but 'twice as expensive' as the rest of the industrialized world.
Why do we have to have such
Submitted by urban legend on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 10:10 AM PDT.
Why do we have to have such fuzzy thinking? "Healthcare" confuses quality of care once you get it with the assurance you can get it. Do Americans think we have the best health insurance system in the world? I doubt it. Could we get away with saying we have the worst health insurance system in the industrial word? I think so.
I attribute it to two
Submitted by Brett (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 10:29 AM PDT.
I attribute it to two things:
1. Americans tend to judge things that we're wary of criticism in terms of the best available stuff out there in America. So we might say things like "the US has the best post-secondary education in the world", but what they really mean is "the US has some of the best schools for teaching post-secondary education in the world."
Same goes for health care, where we often judge it by the sheer quality available - even if it is only available to the rich. It's like Giuliani's attack last year on British Health Care - does anyone think Giuliani's care was somehow typical of that available to the average american?
2. The democratic congressmen, by and large, believe that statement by McConnell, but they qualify. They think that the real problem is the uninsured, and everyone else has it made - but of course, the real problem is the under-insured, and the people who get dropped, as mentioned by Anonymous in the anecdote about the professor.
The USA has the most
Submitted by SecularAnimist (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 11:33 AM PDT.
The USA has the most profitable health care system in the world.
And in the USA, that's what counts.
Really High Quality for the Rich?
Submitted by JohnH on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 12:10 PM PDT.
I don't want to underestimate the inequality of our system, and that enough is reason for universal health care. But there's more and more evidence that what we produce, period, is quantity rather than quality. The rich may wait less, which really can be a quality issue. Still, mostly our outcomes really are lousy compared to those in other countries.
Just to continue the soccer
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 1:02 PM PDT.
Just to continue the soccer analogies:
I would suggest that we have as much a chance at fundamentally changing our health care system to make it work as we do at winning the 2010 World Cup.
Just like the US team, Obama's health care initiatives will most likely be 1) eliminated in the first round; or 2) such a grab bag of gifts to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries that it will be the equivalent of the US playing St. Kitts and Nevis (yes, it is a real place with a real soccer team) -- an easy win, but a totally meaningless result.
Congress Has the Best Healthcare System in the World
Submitted by Duncan Kinder on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 1:56 PM PDT.
For criss-sakes, this is easy.
Republican congressmen already enjoy the best healthcare system in the world.
The Democrats want to make it available to everyone else. Republicans don't.
And for God's sake, forget about soccer. Amongst the undecided in the public that suggests the French, etc.. ( And yes, I do think France has a much better healthcare system - but you're not trying to sell healthcare to me. )
The USA is number one soccer
Submitted by Harald B (not verified) on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 2:02 PM PDT.
The USA is number one soccer country in the world...everyone else plays football.
I agree we have great health CARE in America.
Submitted by MarkH on Mon Jul. 20, 2009 3:42 PM PDT.
It's so great I think we should offer it to everyone.
To do that we need to reform health insurance, so everyone can afford it.
Then, not to stand still and let the Frenchies catch us, I suggest we continue research on what works best in health care.
Those are the foundations of Pres. Obama's health reform plan: lower cost, better quality, for everyone!
Is health care so great for the insured?
Submitted by James Wimberley on Tue Jul. 21, 2009 1:08 AM PDT.
I challenge the meme that American health care is fine for the majority. (It's excellent for the rich, no argument: a tiny group who don't need insurance, they can pay fees from the petty cash). Consider what a well-insured American faces:
- endless administrative hassles
- large copays
- high rates of medical error
- high infant mortality (can't just be the uninsured)
- primitive IT (outside the socialist enclaves of the VA, Mayo, etc)
- the insecurity and fear of losing coverage with one's job.
You might add the little
Submitted by evdebs on Tue Jul. 21, 2009 7:57 AM PDT.
You might add the little noted insurance ploy "the lifetime limit". If you get really sick, your no longer insured! This is why most people who go bankrupt due to medical bills are middle class and had health insurance.
Most Americans do tend to assume that we are number one in everything but soccer. That's a tribute to our propagandists. Truth be told, after the development and proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction, America is astoundingly second rate.
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) P
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