Paul Krugman refutes healthcare excuses and lies

In his New York Times Column today, Paul Krugman writes:

The United States spends far more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.

You might think that these facts would make the case for major reform of America’s health care system — reform that would involve, among other things, learning from other countries’ experience — irrefutable. Instead, however, apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance.

Krugman devotes the rest of today's column to refuting these excuses, exaggerations and outright lies which have left 47 million American without health care.

Lies? Yes....Lies.

In an earlier Column Krugman had asked why journalists aren't questioning Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani's character after Giuliana lied about prostate cancer survival rates in Britain in an effort to discredit universal health care.

Krugman shows that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America and concludes: So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false. In fact, there’s very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British, which is amazing given the fact that Britain spends only 41 percent as much on health care per person as we do.

You can read that column here.