Boehner's health delusion
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, November 9, 2010;
With a John Boehner speakership fast approaching, I dutifully read up on the
man. I learned he is a Midwestern fellow, born (like us all) into the
virtuous lower middle class, one of 12 siblings and a man whose early
career, in an unironic homage to "The Graduate," was in plastics. What I did
not know - what was missing entirely from my reading - is that he might be
French.
Or Japanese. Or Finnish or British or even German. Whatever the case, this
much is clear: No American, certainly not one about to occupy a leadership
position in our government, could possibly call the American health-care
system "the best health care system in the world." Boehner did just that
last week. He was having an out-of-country experience.
For statistical refutation, we need only refer to the CIA's World Factbook
(no lefty think tank, to be sure) and check the health statistics. The
United States is 49th in life expectancy. Our proud nation bests the Libyans
in this category but not Japan, France, Spain, Britain or, of course, Italy.
You not only live about two years longer in Italy, but you eat better, too.
The same doleful situation applies to infant mortality. This is the saddest
of all categories since it relates to infants who don't make it to their
first birthday. The CIA tells us that the nations that do the worst in this
category are, not surprisingly, mostly in Africa. Then comes much of Asia
and parts of South America, but when you start getting up there a bit, Cuba
does better than the United States and so do Italy, Hungary, Greece, Canada,
Portugal, Britain, Australia and Israel, among others. This should be an
embarrassment to us all - but, clearly, it is not. To Boehner, these
figures - infants dying before they can get a cupcake with a single candle -
don't exist. Rather than improve the situation, he might want to cut the
CIA's appropriation.
Looking elsewhere - think tanks, etc. - Boehner might come across a category
that health-care expert and former Post reporter T.R. Reid labels "avoidable
mortality." Among the richest nations, the United States is 19th of 19.
America is awful at treating asthma, diabetes and kidney disease. If you
have any of these, it's just your bad luck that you're not Japanese or
French . . . or, really, anything other than American. The United States
does do well with breast and prostate cancer, but these are represented by
politically potent lobbies. See, we can do better when we want to.
Boehner's Panglossian sentiment is shared by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the
Republican leader who has vowed to roll back the Obama health-care program.
If McConnell thinks America has the best of all health systems, who can
blame him? When in 2003 he underwent heart bypass surgery, it was at the
Bethesda Naval Hospital. This is a government facility staffed by government
employees - what is sometimes called socialized medicine. His heart did
fine, but he left the hospital untreated for Rampant Endemic Hypocrisy, a
communicable disease that has swept the GOP and left it vulnerable to
irrationality. Michele Bachmann, who peddled the absurdity that President
Obama's overseas trip was costing $200 million a day, stands in mortal peril
of succumbing to it.
Almost 51 million Americans lack health insurance. They postpone treatment,
seeking it at the last minute from emergency rooms - never a pleasant
experience, never a cheap experience and often too late. Obama's health-care
bill was meant to address this problem, among others. It was not a perfect
bill and it may turn out to be the wrong way to go. But a difference in
approach, even a difference in ideology, cannot change the need for reform.
The United States spends upward of 17 percent of its gross domestic product
on health care. European nations spend about 8 percent - and their citizens
are actually healthier. Republicans oppose Obamacare. Fine. But where is
their plan? Not the lauded status quo. As we can see, that's a terminal
disease.
For Democrats, there's hope in Boehner's chirpy pronouncement. It shows a
GOP out of touch with reality, a party of Marie Antoinettes, babbling total
nonsense about health care. The same swing voters who used the election to
hurt the Democrats might learn that America's health-care system is No. 1
only in health-related bankruptcies. It is best in the world only for the
rich and the amply insured. Everyone else can crawl away, unseen by the next
speaker of the House of Representatives - a jolly, detached fellow who
thinks he lives in another country entirely.
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***
From: The Nation Magazine
To: epearlag@earthlink.net
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 3:19 PM
Subject: Katrina vanden Heuvel in Los Angeles
Dear Nation Reader,
We want to invite you to a special Los Angeles appearance by Nation editor
Katrina vanden Heuvel. The free event takes place this week at Book Soup,
LA's celebrated independent bookstore.
The Victims Return: Stephen F. Cohen with Katrina vanden Heuvel
Friday, November 19, 7:00pm
Book Soup, 8818 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA
Stephen F. Cohen's new book, The Victims Return: Survivors of The Gulag
After Stalin uncovers one of the greatest, largely unknown human sagas of
the 20th century--the millions of victims of Stalin's mass terror who
survived the Gulag to be freed in 1950s and 1960s. Cohen tells the story of
their shattered lives, and the personal and political struggles against
people who victimized them. The book is substantially autobiographical in
that Cohen, along with his wife Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation,
personally knew many of the victims during their thirty years of visiting
and living in Moscow. Audience questions and a signing will follow the
conversation. This event is free.
We hope to see you this week!
All best,
Peter Rothberg, The Nation
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