We Need Single Payer 0

Wow. Where to begin…

1. “Taking out” the car and gun-related deaths in order to improve the death stats is akin to saying that the New York Mets would be winning the National League East if we simply take out the losses.

2. Ensign’s sophistry is irrelevent, because the international statistics don’t even deal with cars and guns. Instead, they compare apples to apples. In a 2008 study, the Commonwealth Fund focused solely on serious physical illnesses “such as treatable cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases…deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care.” The Fund looked at 19 industrialized nations (14 in western Europe, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and America), for the years 2002 and 2003…and, of all 19, America had the worst preventable death rate.

3. The OECD has written that, even if you factor in America’s high death rate from all accidents and injuries, America improves its life-expectancy ranking by only two notches, from 19th of 29 member nations to 17th of 29.

4. Ensign was inadvertently suggesting that America would suffer far fewer premature deaths if we didn’t love our cars so much, or love our guns so much. But Hades would freeze over before a conservative Republican would follow his own logic and conclude that we’d suffer far fewer preventable deaths by enhancing public transportation and curbing the love affair with guns. Naturally, Ensign said neither.

5. Forget the gun and car deaths for a moment. There are also three million car accident injuries each year in America, as well as 70,000 annual gun injuries. It’s fair to assume that a hefty number of those injured people don’t have access to any health insurance. Care to guess who picks up the tab?