There are many nuances to the current health care debate and a number of reasons why, despite the Democrats’ huge congressional majorities, they are having so much trouble passing, and even formulating, legislation. But the most important reason by far is this: most Americans like the health care they receive.
In fact, according to Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution, “more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services and only 6.8 percent are dissatisfied.
There’s a good reason for this: most Americans receive good health care servcies and our much maligned system produces better results than government run systems such as Canada’s. For example, again according to Atlas:
Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.
Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.
It’s no accident that President Obama is attemting to demonize the health insurance industry. He needs a villain and the insurance companies represent the one part of the health care system that can reaily be cast as such.
But it’s doubtful that Americans hate insurance companies enough to support the overhaul of a health care system that they believe, with good reason, provides them with good care overall.
Via Jonah Goldberg at the Corner.
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