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Differences

02 Jul 2008 11:27 am

Meanwhile, Mark Ganz from the Puget Sound Health Alliance says he doesn't necessarily think it makes a difference who wins the presidential election. Either one could get the job done, he says, "if they chose to make this a central focus have the political skills and the ability to appeal to the American public." That seems a little blinkered to me. It's true that they're both talented politicians, but the relevant variable here isn't just how much does McCain or Obama care but what do McCain or Obama think. As best I can tell, they actually have substantially different opinions about health care! It's a fallacy to think that there's a "problem" here and that everyone is trying to "solve" it. There are actually different views about what the nature of the problem is.

Ganz then follows this up with music to my ears talking about the serious problems in quality and cost-effectiveness and name-checks this Peter Orszag slide:

quality

Orszag himself will speak later. Ganz quotes Nelson Mandela "things are impossible until you do them" which is a slogan I like.

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Comments (5)

Ganz is an idiot. Did anyone read Greenwald yesterday? He quoted Chomsky to make a point. Chomsky's point was that despite how Obama and McCain might be alike on several fronts, Obama was still heads above McCain and that if you think McCain would be anything more than marginally better than Bush you are nuts.

That slide deserves a post of it's own... or two ... or three!

Is there a link showing where each specific state falls on that chart? For instance, I'd like to know which state appears at the middle top position, which appear at the far left and right, and so on.

I'm no expert, but that graph needs context. Gross cost of care is going to vary widely depending on where the care takes place. For example you probably have to pay comparable staff much more in New York than in rural Georgia.

This is the fashionable health policy chart this year, everybody is using it. But I think people are drawing much stronger conclusions from it that can be warranted, not to mention ignoring lots of issues with the underlying data.


Comments closed July 16, 2008.

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