This week’s winner isn’t technically a “post.” There were a number of serious contenders in the blogosphere for this week’s prize, but none were quite as clueless as this NYT column by Nicholas Kristof.
His basic theme revolves around a false dichotomy frequently peddled by Obamacare advocates: Anyone not for a government takeover of the U.S. health care system is for the dreaded “status quo.”
In support of this BS, Kristof provides a laundry list of long-ago-debunked health reform myths. He even trots out the hoary canard that the quality of U.S. health care is far below that of other developed nations:
The United States ranks No. 1 only in terms of spending.
Really? Then why isn’t Frank Lautenberg flying to the “No. 1″ country for chemotherapy? He can go anywhere he needs to go for treatment. Why stay here? Maybe it’s because of these 5-year survival rates:
This table is from a report in The Telegraph about the UK’s dismal cancer survival rate, and it clearly shows the much-maligned U.S. system outperforming every other country in the developed world.
So, how did Kristof miss that? Perhaps the same way he missed the data Devon Herrick reported from another study showing the U.S. medical system with the best cancer survival rates.
Here’s a chart showing U.S. survival rates for breast and prostate cancer compared to the survival rates of four countries whose health care systems Kristof no doubt considers superior to ours:
But you can’t learn this stuff if you do your research on the cocktail-party circuit. Kristof, like most MSM journalists, is too lazy and pompous to learn the basics of health care. So, he writes a lot of stupid columns.
But I’ll bet he isn’t stupid enough to go to France, Norway or the UK for cancer treatment.
Comments 1
Do I need glasses? I didn’t see Canada or Cuba on that list. Michael Moore swears both have better healthcare then the U.S. Is Mr. Moore wrong? You bet’cha.
Bachman/Palin 2012
Posted 20 Feb 2010 at 1:41 pm ¶Post a Comment