Don’t Fall Prey to the Five Myths of Health Care
By Sally C. Pipes
President-elect Barack Obama has promised to make healthcare reform a top priority. But in order to follow through, Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill must reject some longstanding misconceptions about health care in this country.
Here are five such myths. Each is widely repeated, deeply held — and dead wrong.
1.) We need more government to insure poor Americans.
Government has been providing health coverage to low-income patients for over 40 years. The results are hardly encouraging.
Witness Medicaid. The quality of care beneficiaries receive is exceedingly poor. Heart attack victims covered by Medicaid, for instance, are less likely to receive state-of-the-art care than their privately insured counterparts — and they’re more than twice as likely to die as a result of their illness.