For the advocates of “single-payer” health care, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a much beloved source of statistical data. In fact, they cite the OECD almost as often as they mention the fabled “47 million uninsured.” Typical examples can be found here and here.
But are the statistical methods of the OECD really sound? And, if so, is it a politically neutral organization? Unfortunately for the socialized medicine crowd, both questions must be answered in the negative.
Regarding statistical methods, the OECD has many critics. John Goodman, for example, has this to say on the subject:
OECD [health care] statistics are not always useful because different countries use different methods to report costs. No effective international guidelines exist and some countries include services that others do not.
In fact, as David Hogberg points out, the OECD itself warns that its Quality Indicators are not “internationally comparable” :
That is because there is a lack of international agreement on the most promising indicators and many definitions of each indicator that could be adopted.
Moreover, even for economists willing to accept such limitations, the OECD’s political neutrality is open to considerable question. Pierre Lemieux, a University of Quebec economist, writes:
From an innocuous and rather useful free-market-oriented economic and statistical shop, the OECD has thus become a promoter of global diktats.
So, if the evangelists of “single-payer” health care want to find new converts among thinking people, they might want to find space in their talking points for an additional source of international health care statistics.
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