Bill Parcells vs. Bachmann: "You Are What You Are"

I take no delight in informing you that Rep. Michele Bachmann has a reality-challenged view of the U.S. health care system. I’d be happy to never mention her on my blog. But periodically we get commenters jumping on the site to voice the largely-discredited adage that the American health care system is the best in the world. But just saying it doesn’t make it so.

After calling for the media to investigate who in Congress was anti-American, defending the massive increase carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing climate change as “a natural part of nature,” and doing many other things that cause Keith Olberman’s voice to quake with disbelief, Rep. Bachmann published a health care puff piece in Wednesday’s Hill blog. Steel yourself for an argument from the 20th century:

From Canada to Cuba to countries across Europe, the results are all the same: a lack of doctors and nurses (particularly well-trained ones), bed shortages and long waiting lists for treatments and surgeries, and rationed care. While our current system is not perfect, it’s the best there is.

Hoo, boy. Well, really, I would invite the Congresswoman to come to Queens, which her first sentence describes better than it does any countries in Europe. Queens has lost three hospitals within the past year, with the attendant bed shortages and long waiting lists for treatments and surgeries. Queens is also experiencing rationed care, much like the U.S. does – if you have insurance, you get care. But also, if your insurance covers what you need, you get the treatment you need. Everyone else does not. Other industrialized countries may not be as quick as the U.S. to embrace the latest cutting-edge treatments, but only the U.S. rations essential care, including, at times, emergency care (Emergency Room diversions, anyone?) Don’t even get me started on the doctor shortage – except to say that with 2.4 doctors for every 1,000, our ratio beats only Canada, Japan and New Zealand, and is bested by at least eight other countries.

As for being the best there is, I’ll let Tom Daschle rebut this from a speech given yesterday (h/t Ezra Klein):

But for every king who may come to the United States, there are thousands of people who leave the US to get medical care elsewhere. They call it now medical tourism. Thousands of people leave the United States because the quality and the cost is better in other countries. So how do we explain, well we explain by simply stating that we have islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity.

We are 29th in the world when it comes to infant mortality. 29th. We are 24th in overall women’s health. We rank 31st in life expectancy. On Pine Ridge Indian reservation the life expectancy of an Indian male is 47 years. The same as what it is in Botswana. We rank 37th overall in outcomes. 37th. Below Costa Rica and just above Slovenia. And I would ask how long would this country stand for being 37th in the Olympics? We wouldn’t stand for it long.

Look, I love my country – I wish we had the best in the world. Lord knows we deserve it. But at the end of the day when you look at the numbers, in the immortal words of Bill Parcells, “You are what you are.” Denying the urgent need for change may make you feel better ideologically, but it won’t make you healthier, it won’t make you live longer, it won’t generate more doctors out of thin air, and it won’t solve the problem.

(Photo credit:  Dogfael on Flickr.)