To see how advocates of socialized medicine prefer to conduct the health reform debate, read their responses to John Goodman’s Health Affairs post about his well-researched paper on U.S. health care.
For anyone interested in objective data, Goodman’s twenty-page discussion is quite thought-provoking. But our “progressive” friends are not interested in mere facts. Matthew Holt’s comment is typical:
There’s little point going through a blow by blow refutation of Goodman and his fellow hacks’ series of out of context citations and ridiculous assertations.
Believe it or not, this snarling little gremlin is what passes on the Left for a “respected” health care wonk. And his ad hominem cheap shots are by no means unusual for these people. Here’s another comment:
[Goodman] and his colleagues have pieced together a document using classic Goodman rhetorical deceptions.
This nastygram is from Don McCanne, a “Senior Health Policy Fellow” for Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), a group of single-payer zealots famous for producing phony studies.
Absent from Holt’s and McCanne’s comments is any refutation of Goodman’s fact statements. They discuss “rhetorical deceptions” and “ridiculous assertations” (sic) but never cite examples.
The reason Holt and McCanne rely on ad hominem attacks is that the facts are on Goodman’s side. They both know that, in a debate based on objective data, they haven’t a prayer of winning.
Comments 6
Hmmm…while apparently only a 20 page point by point refutation is good enough for you (and they’ve been written many time), you appear to have missed the question I actually asked.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not an advocate of single payer, but expecting you to research the scads I’ve written on this is too much. But you could ask Don McCanne
Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 8:30 pm ¶“apparently only a 20 page point by point refutation is good enough for you”
That would be nice, but even ONE fact-based comment would give you at least some credibility. Thus far, however, you haven’t been equal to that challenge.
Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 9:50 pm ¶Repeating what I posted on the Health Affairs blog to a similar criticism: (Catron) criticizes us for failing to provide evidence supporting our challenges to the paper by John Goodman and his colleagues, but a blog is an inappropriate forum for answering a 20 page paper using “as many as 100 references,” especially when some of the references need to be challenged as well.
Nevertheless, we have already provided an extensive criticism of a previous paper by John Goodman and Devon Herrick that took similar liberties in reaching spurious conclusions. That paper was “Twenty Myths about Single-payer Health Insurance.” (http://www.debate-central.org/topics/2002/book2.pdf) The response, written by John Geyman, was “Myths and Memes about Single-Payer Health Insurance in the United States: A Rebuttal to Conservative Claims.” (http://www.pnhp.org/facts/myths_memes.pdf). Repeating a similar critique of Goodman’s current paper is not worth our time since we’ve already made our point.
Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 10:19 pm ¶“we have already provided an extensive criticism”
What you have “already provided,” Mr. McCanne, is a series of elaborate straw men combined with variety of risible excuses for not dealing with Goodman’s actual arguments and facts.
Posted 23 Mar 2009 at 11:52 am ¶In all of the blog entries and various writings by Mr. Holt, I’ve never really seen him actually debate the points with an advocate of free market health care. His modus operandi is typically an ad hominem attack (”looney right,” etc.). Most amusing is that he was unable to debate the impressive David Hogberg without making school yard taunts using his last name. That this caliber of person is considered an “expert” on health care policy is indicative of the poverty of ideas in the Obama age.
Posted 24 Mar 2009 at 10:12 am ¶It is funny the that replies posted here from PNHP do not address the name calling of Goodman and others, but point to a paper which is trying to scare you from the “well funded” and “neo-conservative” think tanks who “grow by seizing opportunities at the right time”. Watch out they will get you!!! Why read the rest when the “de-bunking” paper agrees with myth number two, and admits that there are access to care issues regardless of system, and rather than show how single payer system can solve access problems, points out americans access problems. Also missing from the FAQ’s on the PNHP website is “Will everyone have equal access to healthcare?” They can just quote the paper for the answer: No, “Disparities between rich and poor are typical everywhere. Disparities in access are also noted between residents in rural areas and those in urban areas again, as is typically the case elsewhere. - http://www.pnhp.org/facts/myths_memes.pdf
Posted 01 Apr 2009 at 12:13 pm ¶Post a Comment