The truth about "socialized medicine"

With SiCKO ranking in the top 5 grossing documentaries of all time, millions of Americans are unleashing a healthy sense of moral outrage over our inadequate and exorbitantly expensive system of private health care. Bush and his fellow insurance industry apologists are running scared, pushing back against the rising groundswell in favor of revolutionizing our health care system.

Chronicle columnist David Lazarus points out that Bush should be the last person to deride government-run health care, with taxpayers having just foot the bill for his colonoscopy. What's more, Bush's argument for why he'd veto Congress' bill to provide care to millions of uninsured children mischaracterizes what health care reform really entails:

Bush wasn't being entirely accurate when he derided the notion of government-run health care for every American. That might make for a fine little sound bite, especially among those who fear the specter of "socialized medicine," but it's not really what's at stake.

Rather, advocates of health care reform are seeking government-run insurance for every American, leaving the health care part to those who know best - doctors and nurses.

This is a crucial distinction at a time when 47 million Americans lack medical coverage and, according to researchers at Harvard University, about a third of the $2 trillion spent annually on health care in this country is squandered on bureaucratic overhead.

"Cuba is socialized medicine," observed Dr. Kevin Grumbach, who heads the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF. "The government employs all the physicians and owns all the hospitals. That's not what anyone is talking about for this country."

Rather, the focus here is on two indisputable facts: that the United States spends about twice as much per person on health care as most other industrialized democracies, and that Americans on average do not live as long as people in countries that guarantee medical coverage to their citizens.

As for those long waiting lines? Paul Krugman spells it out:

It’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.

Michael Moore took CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta to task for a similar attempt to obfuscate the issue of health care reform (which Gupta has since recanted).

Health care policy wonk Ezra Klein has also done his part to encourage a shift from red-baiting to substantive debate in discrediting the Walter Reid/Veteran's Administration talking point:

Klein: Let's talk you about the socialized system. We have the VA.
Kudlow: I don't think the VA works in spots. But since you asked me, what we learned about the VA is that certain of those hospitals have completely run down in care and need to be replaced. Klein: Are you talking about Walter Reed?
Kudlow: We have number one.
Klein: Walter Reid is part of an army hospital, not part of the VA.
Kudlow: With regard to the prescription drug program, you can't get the drugs you need.
Klein: Here's what I don't understand. Rand Corporation ranked VA highest on quality. The Internal Medicine ranked it highest. The New England Journal ranked it had highest on quality. They keep health care costs down and they have slower spending. I don't understand what you don't like.

Single-payer advocates have the facts on their side. Opponents only have diversions.