"Myths of Universal Healthcare coverage"

[PainRack]

While debating on SB, someone actually brought up statistics and cited a source for his argument. Grasping the rare oppurtinity, I actually googled the net and found the orginal source and put it here for you guys to read and dissect.
John Goodman, Cato Insitute

[Uraniun235]

I really don't feel like trudging through and picking apart the entire article piece by piece, but a quick glance through the first few pages seems to show no shortage of sloppy and/or dishonest arguments. "Canadians have less rights to medical treatment than dogs do! Americans don't have to wait for medical treatment (at least those who can afford it)!" This is unsurprising considering the function of the Cato Institute as the Conservative Apologist Squad.

[K. A. Pital]

Please. Cato Instute.

From the first sentences on, you have "MRI scans", "lines for heart surgeries" and "capitalism unchained WOWW!".

And little in the way of statistics, because those would show how bad the US healthcare really is nationwide. But individualists do not operate with nationwide statistic bodies since "society" is a concept as alien to those libertarian morons as "taxpaying".

About "Cato Institute":

The Cato Institute established its Project on Social Security Privatization in 1995, renaming it the Project on Social Security Choice in 2002

Needs much else be said?

The Cato Institute holds regular briefings on global warming with global warming skeptics as panelists.

Yet better. And a final strike:

In response to the World Watch Report in May 2003 that linked climate change and severe weather events: "It's false. There is absolutely no evidence that extreme weather events are on the increase. None. The argument that more and more dollar damages accrue is a reflection of the greater amount of wealth we've created." - Jerry Taylor[25]

Cato's relationship with the mainstream scientific community has at times been strained. For example, while experts such as Sarah Darby (Oxford), Jon Samet (Johns Hopkins) and Bill Field (University of Iowa) have demonstrated that residential radon exposure is a major public health risk, then-Cato adjunct fellow Steven Milloy re-published articles by Michael Fumento dismissing this research and mounting personal attacks on the scientists. Neither Milloy nor Fumento are scientists.

That's not mentioning that Cato Instute was funded by fucking Philipp Morris and published articles in defence of smoking.

Their healthcare study is likely full of lies and distortions, just as expected from libertarians. For example, the "percentage of waiting adults for surgery" is a false indicator which does not take in the differing amount of patients for surgery, thus making for different absolute numbers.

Percentage of patients spending more than 20 minutes with "their doctor" (a private money bloodsucker, probably) is the highest in the US. Wow. Again, this speaks NOTHING on the quality of national healthcare, since the results - health of a nation - are not considered, coverage is also consistently ignored. But hey, this is Cato. They'd suck Milton Friedman's dick any day and privatize the government itself, had they an opportunity.

Their dismissal of US low life expectancy and higher infant mortality are ridiculous, since "other indicators" which they propose are a complete nonsense for our question! They pride themselves showing that low life expectancy is because of "niggus" with bad life expectancy. Of course, not a word about the 47 million uninsured. That's like, totally unrelated facts.

Then they pride themselves that the US has the lowest average hospital stay. How the fuck is that an achievement? Oh wait - I forgot, that's libertarians.

And so on, and so forth.

[K. A. Pital]

A comparison of American and British physicians in the 1990s found that the British saw a physician almost as often as Americans (roughly six times a year).106 Yet when Americans did see a doctor, the consultation was six times as likely to last more than 20 minutes.10

Holy fucking shit! So one visit to a doctor a year means healthcare is "more accessible"? And one visit a year for 20 minutes is better than six short visits?

Libertarians are ridiculing themselves, no need to help them even.

[Guardsman Bass]

That report gets kind of ridiculous at times. Take this particular nugget:

Spending on specialist services in Vancouver was almost four times as high as spending on specialists in rural Cariboo.

Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that people are going to Vancouver to get specialist treatment, since (wonder of wonders) specialists are more likely to be located in cities, where they have access to a wider clientele?

[Guardsman Bass]

Of course, part of the problem with this resort is that they are comparing the United States with all of the Western European and British Health Care systems, which means that they can cherry pick the worst parts of the Western European systems and stack them up against good parts of the American system. Belying, of course, the fact that there are some real differences between the systems among the European nations and Canada, and every one of them has strengths and weaknesses.

[PainRack]

Their dismissal of US low life expectancy and higher infant mortality are ridiculous, since "other indicators" which they propose are a complete nonsense for our question! They pride themselves showing that low life expectancy is because of "niggus" with bad life expectancy. Of course, not a word about the 47 million uninsured. That's like, totally unrelated facts.

Its gets even more funny, since on one page, he dismisses this as being non indicative of quality healthcare, and uses this to strike against the Canadian healthcare system on the next.

Although he's right on one aspect. Quality of care as defined by "right" care, the US system is better. Its because of over a century of rigorous investment in education and technology, along with strict regulation on the industry.They're still the leader of new healthcare and research after all.

Holy fucking shit! Shocked So one visit to a doctor a year means healthcare is "more accessible"? And one visit a year for 20 minutes is better than six short visits? Laughing

Errr.... its saying that American consultation times are longer than the British. That's all, the number of visits are equivalent.

[PainRack]

Ooh. found something odd. He claims that in the US, mortality rate from breast and prostate cancer is lower than in Australia and the UK, which suggests that the US system provides better quality of care.
Yet, a search online shows this
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=575
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/523781
Death rate in US=30 per 100,000.
Death rate in UK=28 per 100,000