The Art of Spin In The Health Care Debate

Last week I decided to challenge a liberal blogger on some assertions he made regarding a survey he posted on his blog. The survey compared Medicare and private insurance providers; it measured how satisfied enrollees' were with their plans. I immediately noticed that the survey was conducted by The Commonwealth Fund, a group that strongly advocates the expansion of Medicare and that the conclusions of the survey were misleading. Essentially by comparing Medicare to a basket of private insurance companies The Commonwealth Fund had pulled a little statistical trick--by comparing all manner of private insurance companies--the good, the average, the bad, they had essentially kept the average scores for the private insurance company much lower than if they had taken the best insurance company scores and compared it to Medicare. My rationale is that if you are going to advocate that Medicare is the best public option than it should be measured against the best private option. Needless to say, my criticisms of The Commonwealth Fund’s tactics were not happily received. My last post was deleted from the site by its owner, a fellow that didn't understand what "rationing" means in economics and yet claimed that he was an adherent of Austrian economics many years ago. But worst of all, if you read his responses to my comments, this is a man who is the true embodiment of a technocrat; a person that believes in the soundness of bureaucratic systems and the technicians that run them. If we do get Obama Care, I expect just this sort to make decisions for the rest of us. And we will all be much maligned indeed as our economy is dragged down by the balloning cost of a massive public health care plan.