Health Plan

Republican plans for health care reform have finally been revealed!

Hoyer-Larson Bill: All 45 million uninsured Americans would be guaranteed medical care, all of it provided by Dr. Tom Janicak of Houston, TX

Griffith-Cantor Bill: Low-income families would be allowed to huddle outside hospital windows in the cold and look at wealthier families receiving care.

[via Janice]

Rescission

In response to Ron's post on "Putting it Simply," below, I dug up a statistics on government-run health care. Since most of you probably don't read this blog for the comments on the comments, I thought I'd put them here.

In countries with government-run health care, there isn't a man with a gun telling you that you can't get a second opinion. Or a third.

Likewise, most countries with government health care also have private insurance, so there would be nothing against your private insurance company paying for a Mayo Clinic visit if the government did not.

You're much more likely to see private insurance refuse to cover an expensive procedure than, say, Medicare.

Your cancer survival rate depends strongly on which cancer and which country. White Americans have the highest survival rate for prostate and breast cancers, in large part because it's normal for Americans to be regularly scanned for these potential problems. (Black Americans don't fare nearly so well. Nor do white Americans in poor, rual parts of the country.)

But Evil Socialist Japan does better than the US with men's colorectal cancers, and Evil Socialist France did better among women. For the stats, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7510121.stm, or http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/07/17/cancer-survival-depends-on-where-you-live.html

The UK doesn't do nearly so well as other First World countries with cancer, but that has less to do with government-run health care than with British medical culture. British MDs just don't seem to consider cancer worth fighting--- or a lot of anything else.

I had a Brit doctor once, and it was amazing how many things he wouldn't treat me for. "They're normal," he said. "Not for me," I said, and got a new doctor (which was difficult, by the way, because I live in poor, rural New Mexico, and doctors were abandoning the state in droves, all for good capitalist reasons).

Cancer aside, longetivity statistics show that other countries--- =all= of them with government-run health are--- are doing better by their citizens than we are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity. (This leaves out very small countries like Andorra, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore, all of which also have higher longevity stats than the US. Statistically speaking, if you want a long life, you want to get born in a city-state.)

Likewise, if you're a baby who wants to survive to see your first birthday, it's better to be born in Portugal, Anguilla, Slovenia, or Cuba than in the USA. See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

For a lot of dope on where the disinformation against government-run care is generated, Melinda Snodgrass pointed me to this article on a health-insurance executive whose job was to craft the message against Evil Socialized Medicine, but who changed his mind when he saw poor people being treated in animal stalls. (Yes, in the USA.)

Putting it Simply

A pleasingly elementary cartoon about why we need government-run health care.

[thanks to Louy]