From Salon, 11/2/07:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/11/02/healthcare_lies/?source=whitel
ist

Rudy's bogus healthcare stats

Giuliani claims he might not have survived prostate cancer under
"socialized medicine," yet he was covered by a government-provided
plan.

By Joe Conason


To a politician pandering to his party's right wing, a role that
Rudolph Giuliani plays every day now, citing his own recovery from
prostate cancer as an argument against "socialized medicine" must have
seemed like pure genius.

The radio ad that went up this week in New Hampshire suggests that
Giuliani not only faced down the 9/11 terrorists -- or something like
that -- but triumphed over a terrifying disease as well, without the
help of any government bureaucrats.

Or as Giuliani himself says in the controversial ad:

"I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving
cancer -- and thank God I was cured of it -- in the United States: 82
percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44
percent under socialized medicine."

Yes, it's another inspiring and instructive story -- or would be,
perhaps, if only it were true.

The former New York mayor did survive prostate cancer, but otherwise
his statistical claims were not difficult to debunk, as reporters for
the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and other news outlets
quickly discovered.

Giuliani had picked up his numbers from an article in City Journal, a
publication of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, and simply repeated
them in public without bothering to check their validity.

Unfortunately, they were essentially fraudulent figures, extrapolated
inaccurately from old data (by a doctor who also advises the Giuliani
campaign on healthcare).

Accurate and current data, easily available from public health
agencies and medical authorities, shows that the survival rate from
prostate cancer in England is better than 74 percent and in the United
States is better than 98 percent.

Even that difference, as experts explained, probably has nothing to do
with the British National Health Service and much to do with the
aggressive screening programs employed in this country.

(And for the moment, let's merely mention another highly pertinent
issue, namely that the great majority of prostate cancers occur in men
over 65, which indicates that many if not most are treated
successfully under Medicare -- our version of national health
insurance for the elderly -- or by the Department of Veterans Affairs,
which comes as close to truly socialist healthcare as any system in
the world.)

The Giuliani ad's problems go well beyond a pair of phony numbers.

Among the blogging wonks scrutinizing the relevant health data is Ezra
Klein, who asked a separate but penetrating question:

"Wouldn't it be interesting to find out if the gold-standard care
Giuliani got during his prostate cancer came while he was on
government-provided health insurance?"

As Klein surmised, Giuliani was serving as mayor and participating in
a city of New York health plan when his doctor informed him that his
prostate biopsy had come up positive.

The coverage he enjoyed -- which resembles the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Plan -- permits all city employees, from trash haulers
and subway clerks up to the mayor himself, to select from a variety of
insurance providers, and it is not much different from the reform
proposals adopted by his nemesis Hillary Clinton.

In the spring of 2000, when Giuliani learned that he had cancer and
abruptly dropped out of the Senate race against Sen. Clinton, he was
enrolled as a member of GHI, one of the two gigantic HMO groups that
provide care for most city workers (the other is known as HIP).

He underwent surgery and radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital, a
prestigious institution that participates in the GHI plan, which means
that his costs were largely underwritten by city taxpayers.

So does that qualify as "socialized medicine"?

At GHI and HIP, the city government pays the premiums for its hundreds
of thousands of enrolled members, of course.

On the board of directors of GHI, a nonprofit corporation, sit half a
dozen officials from the city's largest unions, including Harry
Nespoli, president of the Sanitationmen's Association Local 831, and
Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100
(who led a tough, illegal strike against the subway system last year).
Among the many state and federal regulations and programs that support
the operations of these major insurers is a New York state "risk
allocation pool" that cushions the financial impacts of certain kinds
of mandated coverage.

If that isn't socialism, it hardly sounds like pure private
enterprise, either.

While that may startle a boob who accepted the premise of Giuliani's
silly commercial, it is hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the
pedigree of GHI and HIP, which were among the earliest examples of
prepaid healthcare in the United States.

Both were originally cooperative enterprises, founded by idealistic
progressives whose hope was to make care more affordable for
working-class families.

(And their earliest supporters notably included Fiorello LaGuardia, a
liberal Republican mayor of New York who happened to be of Italian
descent.)

Naturally such hopeful initiatives outraged the reactionary ideologues
and political mountebanks of that era.

Back in 1937, the appearance of Washington's first group health plan
for federal employees was denounced in Time magazine as a
"blood-curdling new excursion into the practice of medicine" by the
government, which surely meant the end of professionalism, declining
standards, ruinous expenses and nothing less than the advent of
"Soviet medicine."

We've heard it all before, Rudy.

And 70 years later, it isn't exactly fresh.

_______________________________________________________

Hey, Rudy, put your dress on and repeat after
me...9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11...

Harry

Giuliani claims he might not have survived prostate cancer under
"socialized medicine," yet he was covered by a government-provided
plan.

From Salon, 11/2/07:http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/11/02/healthcare_lies/?sour...

Rudy's bogus healthcare stats

Giuliani claims he might not have survived prostate cancer under
"socialized medicine," yet he was covered by a government-provided
plan.

From Salon, 11/2/07:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/11/02/healthcare_lies/?source=whitelist

Rudy's bogus healthcare stats

Giuliani claims he might not have survived prostate cancer under
"socialized medicine," yet he was covered by a government-provided
plan.

By Joe Conason


To a politician pandering to his party's right wing, a role that
Rudolph Giuliani plays every day now, citing his own recovery from
prostate cancer as an argument against "socialized medicine" must have
seemed like pure genius.

The radio ad that went up this week in New Hampshire suggests that
Giuliani not only faced down the 9/11 terrorists -- or something like
that -- but triumphed over a terrifying disease as well, without the
help of any government bureaucrats.

Or as Giuliani himself says in the controversial ad:

"I had prostate cancer five, six years ago. My chance of surviving
cancer -- and thank God I was cured of it -- in the United States: 82
percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44
percent under socialized medicine."

Yes, it's another inspiring and instructive story -- or would be,
perhaps, if only it were true.

The former New York mayor did survive prostate cancer, but otherwise
his statistical claims were not difficult to debunk, as reporters for
the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and other news outlets
quickly discovered.

Giuliani had picked up his numbers from an article in City Journal, a
publication of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, and simply repeated
them in public without bothering to check their validity.

Unfortunately, they were essentially fraudulent figures, extrapolated
inaccurately from old data (by a doctor who also advises the Giuliani
campaign on healthcare).

Accurate and current data, easily available from public health
agencies and medical authorities, shows that the survival rate from
prostate cancer in England is better than 74 percent and in the United
States is better than 98 percent.

Even that difference, as experts explained, probably has nothing to do
with the British National Health Service and much to do with the
aggressive screening programs employed in this country.

(And for the moment, let's merely mention another highly pertinent
issue, namely that the great majority of prostate cancers occur in men
over 65, which indicates that many if not most are treated
successfully under Medicare -- our version of national health
insurance for the elderly -- or by the Department of Veterans Affairs,
which comes as close to truly socialist healthcare as any system in
the world.)

The Giuliani ad's problems go well beyond a pair of phony numbers.

Among the blogging wonks scrutinizing the relevant health data is Ezra
Klein, who asked a separate but penetrating question:

"Wouldn't it be interesting to find out if the gold-standard care
Giuliani got during his prostate cancer came while he was on
government-provided health insurance?"

As Klein surmised, Giuliani was serving as mayor and participating in
a city of New York health plan when his doctor informed him that his
prostate biopsy had come up positive.

The coverage he enjoyed -- which resembles the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Plan -- permits all city employees, from trash haulers
and subway clerks up to the mayor himself, to select from a variety of
insurance providers, and it is not much different from the reform
proposals adopted by his nemesis Hillary Clinton.

In the spring of 2000, when Giuliani learned that he had cancer and
abruptly dropped out of the Senate race against Sen. Clinton, he was
enrolled as a member of GHI, one of the two gigantic HMO groups that
provide care for most city workers (the other is known as HIP).

He underwent surgery and radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital, a
prestigious institution that participates in the GHI plan, which means
that his costs were largely underwritten by city taxpayers.

So does that qualify as "socialized medicine"?

At GHI and HIP, the city government pays the premiums for its hundreds
of thousands of enrolled members, of course.

On the board of directors of GHI, a nonprofit corporation, sit half a
dozen officials from the city's largest unions, including Harry
Nespoli, president of the Sanitationmen's Association Local 831, and
Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100
(who led a tough, illegal strike against the subway system last year).
Among the many state and federal regulations and programs that support
the operations of these major insurers is a New York state "risk
allocation pool" that cushions the financial impacts of certain kinds
of mandated coverage.

If that isn't socialism, it hardly sounds like pure private
enterprise, either.

While that may startle a boob who accepted the premise of Giuliani's
silly commercial, it is hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the
pedigree of GHI and HIP, which were among the earliest examples of
prepaid healthcare in the United States.

Both were originally cooperative enterprises, founded by idealistic
progressives whose hope was to make care more affordable for
working-class families.

(And their earliest supporters notably included Fiorello LaGuardia, a
liberal Republican mayor of New York who happened to be of Italian
descent.)

Naturally such hopeful initiatives outraged the reactionary ideologues
and political mountebanks of that era.

Back in 1937, the appearance of Washington's first group health plan
for federal employees was denounced in Time magazine as a
"blood-curdling new excursion into the practice of medicine" by the
government, which surely meant the end of professionalism, declining
standards, ruinous expenses and nothing less than the advent of
"Soviet medicine."

We've heard it all before, Rudy.

And 70 years later, it isn't exactly fresh.

_______________________________________________________

Hey, Rudy, put your dress on and repeat after
me...9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11..9/11...

Harry