Fighting Misinformation

Brad Delong, Fighting Misinformation on day at a time. Here are three things large groups of people believe, or at least say, that are not true. There are many more at the link.

For the Virtual Green Room: June 5, 2011 - Grasping Reality with Both Hands

1.Tort reform is the way to control health-care costs: Aaron Carroll: "How much does the malpractice system really cost in the U.S.?... $55.6 billion in 2008 dollars, or about 2.4 percent of all U.S. health-care spending.... So yes, that is real money, and it theoretically could be reduced.... [W]e could look at Texas, where non-economic damages on malpractice lawsuits were capped at $250,000 about eight years ago... Medicare spending seems to have gone up faster than the nation’s since 2003. Hardly a persuasive argument for tort reform = cost control.... [T]ort reform, which might lead to a 10 percent reduction in malpractice premiums (not small), which might translate into a health-care spending reduction of 0.1 percent..."

2.The RomneyCare that so many Republicans used to support is very different from ObamaCare: Rudi Giuliani: "The reality is that Obamacare and Romneycare are almost exactly the same. It’s not very helpful trying to distinguish them. I would think the best way to handle it is to say: 'It was a terrible mistake and if I could do it over again, I wouldn’t do it'..."

3.Doctors are all leaving Canada to practice in the U.S.: Aaron Carroll: Except for Austria and Germany, fewer doctors were satisfied practicing medicine in the United States in 2009 than in any other surveyed country. That includes Canada. And it was before health care reform, so you can’t blame any dissatisfaction on the PPACA.... Except for Germany, more physicians in the United Sates felt that the system needed to be completely rebuilt than physicians in any other country.... So let’s stop pretending that doctors in outer countries are miserable, and practicing in the Unites States is paradise.... The meme is that physicians are leaving Canada in droves and moving here. Is that true?... In the mid-1990s, the number leaving for the U.S. spiked at about 400 to 500 a year. However, in recent years, this number has declined, with only 169 physicians leaving for the States in 2003; 138 in 2004; and 122 in each of 2005 and 2006. These numbers represent less than half a percent of all doctors working in Canada..."

tnb