Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

- David Brooks has one of those infuriatingly, superficially reasonable, columns that is premised on an outlandish lie -- something of a trademark for him.  Brooks starts with the premise that Medicare as we know it is doomed, describes the difference between the Democratic and Republican approaches to it -- Democrats will rely on centralized groups of experts to rationally allocate care, while Republicans will allow a thousand flowers to bloom via the miracle of the private insurance market, and asserts that the latter approach is far more likely to produce savings, because as we all know the market is miraculous and centralized economies of scale have never been achieved in health care -- well, except in every other industrialized nation that provides national health care to its citizens without a for-profit insurance sector.  See e.g.  Sweet fucking Jesus.  But here is what Brooks claims:  "The fact is, there is no dispositive empirical proof about which method is best — the centralized technocratic one or the decentralized market-based one."  So the fact that every country with a national health care system spends substantially less of its GDP on health care while providing universal coverage is not empirical proof.  Brooks also claims that "Medicare has tried to control costs centrally for decades with terrible results."  But again, this is untrue -- Medicare, despite insuring the highest cost population in the U.S. has seen its costs increase at lower rates than health care costs in the private sector, which has failed terribly in controlling costs for the past three decades.  Why do Republicans suppose that it will be any more effective going forward?  Where is the empirical evidence for that proposition?

Update:  Here is more recent, more comprehensive empirical proof courtesy of the Kaiser Foundation (h/t to Ezra) that David Brooks is utterly full of crap. 

- USA Today, in the meantime, gets into the inside the Beltway deficit hysteria, throwing out a slew of out of context and underexplained statistics designed to make ordinary Americans think that the country is bankrupt and that they will all be on the hook for some $500,000 in national debt.  It's really a shameful, economically illiterate, and hysterical piece -- one that spreads disinformation rather than enlightenment. I particularly enjoy any article that refers to United States government bonds as I.O.U.s, like it is a slip of paper slid into the petty cash drawer as opposed to obligations that the U.S. has been meeting to investors since the Republic was founded. 

Comments

[kathy a.]

brooks' piece is quite dishonest. it ignores that insurance companies are for-profit, that the voucher proposal will leave medicare recipients without care they need, that elders need and deserve a health-care safety net, and that costs can be better controlled with a few changes. it frames things in that "death panel" kind of pitch, that medicare will remove individual choices - -whereas those left behind without minimal coverage will have no good choices at all. and yes, it completely ignores that other industrialized countries provide better care at less cost, to everyone.

bonds are an investment, right? they may pay out at lower rates than some investments, but they are considered very reliable, no? less risky, and thus "conservative" investments?

[Crissa]

This is like the 'economic freedom' index which says that Americans are less free than Australians and therefore we should cancel our social services.

Nevermind Australia has more social programs than us and less freedom of speech.

[Crissa]

Where the hell did USA Today get a five trillion dollar deficit?

[Sir Charles]

The notion that one is made freer by relying on private, for-profit insurers rather than the government is one that I will never understand.

[low-tech cyclist]

"The current crisis...is a solution neatly divided into two problems. We have people who desperately need work to do. And we have work that desperately needs doing."
-Fred Clark

Every last Democrat in Congress should be saying this at every possible opportunity. Ditto President Obama, every member of his Administration, and every Democrat considering running for Congress next year.

[low-tech cyclist]

I join SC in absolutely detesting (because I know he's engaging in full sarcasm mode here) the references to U.S. bonds as IOUs, as if they were scraps of paper with "IOU $3" and a signature scrawled underneath. Especially because, for many years in the pre-Internet era, I was taken in by the references to Social Security's trust fund holding nothing but IOUs. (Thank God for the Web, which has enabled so many of us to remedy our own areas of ignorance.) I know those references mislead a lot of people still. And I have no doubt that the people making such references are doing it for the purpose of misleading.

[oddjob]

I was taken in as well. It wasn't until much later that it dawned on me that "an I.O.U. (with interest)" is pretty much the freakin' definition of a "bond"!

[kathy a.]

ltc, i LOVE that conclusion and link. there is a ton of work going undone, work that needs to be done.

[Sir Charles]

kathy and l-t c,

As someone who has spent 26 years representing pension plans, I assure you that U.S. government bonds are viewed as the safest and surest investment bet out there. Even in an era where such bonds are paying only about 3% interest per annum, virtually every pension plan holds a significant number of them for their stability, liquidity, and ease of selling.

These "IOUs" have withstood revolution, civil war, depression, world wars, and upheavals of every kind imaginable over the last 235 years. The U.S. has never defaulted on these obligations, which makes them the surest thing out there.

And this is reflected in the fact that Uncle Sam can, to this day, only pay 3% interest to creditors who are willing to tie up there money for ten years. This is the markets way of expressing faith in the U.S. economy over the long haul. And we know that markets are never wrong.

[Sir Charles]

The Fred Clark quote is spot on.

There is so much work to be done -- and so much talent out there being left idle. It's a crime.

[JMG]

That's rich coming from USA Today, the multimillion dollar losing enterprise of Gannett, the most poorly managed and despicable corporation in mass media, except maybe for Tribune Co. Gannett bonds, now THOSE are IOUs

[kathy a.]

re the UPDATE: wow. those graphs don't make us look too smart. and they don't even deal with our lack of coverage for many citizens, while most of the other countries feature health care for all.

[Sir Charles]

JMG,

Yeah, but private enterprise is perfect -- because I said so.

kathy,

Yeah, we're paying 50, 60, 70% more in GDP terms and leaving 50 million people uninsured. It's great.