Emac's Stock Watch | Fox Business
« The Fiscal Fed
What Ruth Madoff Didn't Say »

  • June 23, 2009 08:24 AM EDT by Elizabeth MacDonald

    Health-Care Myths

    The Obama administration is now attempting the biggest overhaul of healthcare since Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

    But the health care reform debate is riddled with misleading myths taken as fact, myths that are torquing the debate beyond recognition, from the U.S.'s supposedly poor infant mortality rates, who really gets medical care, the level of uninsureds, who really pays for insurance, who actually can afford insurance and wait times for surgeries.  

    Most everyone agrees that the U.S. health system is broken and that the uninsured must get coverage.

    But fixing the health system should be based on the facts, not on a statistical faith-based initiative mounted to ram through reform, where the data is either more nuanced on closer look or the statements made are simply not true.

    Worth keeping in mind, as the U.S. is already on track to compile total 10-year deficits that would surpass the annual GDP of Great Britain, Russia and Germany for one year-combined, and as the government is getting increasingly entangled in key industries, with higher taxes coming on incomes, on capital and on energy. Soliciting Lobbyists

    Meanwhile, the deficit spending figures do not include Medicare and Social Security costs, reforms which are so far on the backburner, they are off the stove. The following includes research from Fox News analyst James Farrell.

    Myth: "The U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world."

    Talk about stretching a point until it snaps. This ranking is based on data mining.

    The U.S. ranks high on this list largely because this country numbers among those that actually measure neonatal deaths, notably in premature infant fatalities, unlike other countries that basically leave premature babies to die, notes health analyst Betsey McCaughey.

    Other statistical quirks push the U.S. unjustifiably higher in this ranking compared to other countries.

    The Center for Disease Control says the U.S. ranks 29th in the world for infant mortality rates, (according to the CDC), behind most other developed nations.

    The U.S. is supposedly worse than Singapore, Hong Kong, Greece, Northern Ireland, Cuba and Hungary. And the U.S. is supposedly on a par with Slovakia and Poland. CNN, the New York Times, numerous outlets across the country report the U.S. as abysmal in terms of infant mortality, without delving into what is behind this ranking.

    The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group, routinely flunks the U.S. health system using the infant mortality rate.

    "Infant mortality and our comparison with the rest of the world continue to be an embarrassment to the United States," Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a research organization, has said.

    Start with the definition. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a country's infant mortality rate as the number of infants who die between birth and age one, per 1,000 live births.

    WHO says a live birth is when a baby shows any signs of life, even if, say, a low birth weight baby takes one, single breath, or has one heartbeat. While the U.S. uses this definition, other countries don't and so don't count premature or severely ill babies as live births-or deaths.    

    The United States counts all births if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size or duration of life, notes Bernardine Healy, a former director of the National Institutes of Health and former president and chief executive of the American Red Cross (Healy noted this information in a column for U.S. News & World Report).

    And that includes stillbirths, which many other countries don't report.

    And what counts as a birth varies from country to country. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) before these countries count these infants as live births, Healy notes.

    In other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long, Healy notes. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless, and are not counted, Healy says. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth, Healy notes.

    Norway, which has one of the lowest infant mortality rates, shows no better infant survival than the United States when you factor in Norway's underweight infants that are not now counted, Healy says, quoting Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

    Moreover, the ranking doesn't take into account that the US has a diverse, heterogeneous population, Healy adds, unlike, say, in Iceland, which tracks all infant deaths regardless of factor, but has a population under 300,000 that is 94% homogenous.

    APTOPIX Obama WasteLikewise, Finland and Japan do not have the ethnic and cultural diversity of the U.S.'s 300 mn-plus citizens. 

    Plus, the U.S. has a high rate of teen pregnancies, teens who smoke, who take drugs, who are obese and uneducated, all factors which cause higher infant mortality rates.

    And the US has more mothers taking fertility treatments, which keeps the rate of pregnancy high due to multiple-birth pregnancies.

    Again, the U.S. counts all of these infants as births. Moreover, we're not losing healthy babies, as the scary stats imply. Most of the babies that die are either premature or born seriously ill, including those with congenital malformations.

    Even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, cautions against using comparisons country-by-country.

    "Some of the international variation in infant and neonatal mortality rates may be due to variations among countries in registering practices of premature infants (whether they are reported as live births or not)," the OECD says.

    "In several countries, such as in the United States, Canada and the Nordic countries, very premature babies (with relatively low odds of survival) are registered as live births, which increases mortality rates compared with other countries that do not register them as live births." (Note: Emphasis EMac's).

    The U.S. ranks much better on a measure that the World Health Organization says is more accurate, the perinatal mortality rate, defined as death between 22 weeks' gestation and 7 days after birth. According to the WHO 2006 report on Neonatal and Perinatal Mortality, the U.S. comes in at 16th-and even higher if you knock out several tiny countries with tiny birthrates and populations, such as Martinique, Hong Kong, and San Marino.

    Myth: "About 46 mn Americans lack access to health insurance."

    There is a difference between health care and health insurance, as Fox Business anchor Brian Sullivan points out after researching reports on health care from the Congressional Budget Office, Blue Cross-Blue Shield and Georgetown University.

    Everyone has access to health care. They may not have health insurance, but the law mandates everyone who shows up at emergency rooms must be treated, insurance or not, he reports.

    About 14 mn of the uninsured were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP 2003, a BlueCross-BlueShield Association study based on 2003 data estimated. These people would be signed up for government insurance if they ever made it to the emergency room, Sullivan says.

    A whopping 70% of uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid, SCHIP, or both programs, a 2008 study by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute shows.

    Census figures also show that 18.3 mn of the uninsured were under 34 who may simply not think about the need for insurance, Sullivan reports.

    And of those 46 mn without insurance, an estimated 10 mn or so are non-U.S. citizens who may not be eligible, according to statistics from the Census Bureau), Sullivan reports.

    Myth: "The uninsured can't afford to buy coverage."

    Many may be able to afford health insurance, but for whatever reason choose to not buy it. In 2007, an estimated 17.6 mn of the uninsured made more than $50,000 per year, and 10 mn of those made more than $75,000 a year, says Sally Pipes, author of the book, The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide, a book that attempts to dig behind the numbers. According to author Pipes, 38% of the U.S. uninsured population earns more than $50,000 per year.

    That means 38% of the uninsured likely make enough to afford health insurance, but for undetermined reasons choose not to buy it.

    Myth: "Most of the uninsured do not have health insurance because they are not working and so don't have access to health benefits through an employer."

    Not so fast--the data is more nuanced and revealing upon closer look. baucus

    According to the CBO, about half of the uninsured in 2009 fall into one of the following three categories. Some people will be in more than one of those categories at the same time:

    *Nearly one out of three, 30%, will be offered, but will decline, coverage from an employer.

    *Nearly one out of five, 18%, will be eligible for, but not enrolled in Medicaid; and

    *More than one out of seven, 17%, will have family income above 300% of the poverty level (about $65,000 for a family of four);

    What is potentially the real number for the poor uninsured? According to a 2003 Blue Cross study, 8.2 mn Americans are actually without coverage for the long haul, because they are too poor to purchase health care, but earn too much to qualify for government assistance.

    [Source: CBO, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," December 18, 2008, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/12-18-KeyIssues.pdf]

    Myth: "The estimated 45 mn people without health insurance lacked health insurance for every day of the year."

    The CBO's 45 mn estimate reflects individuals "without health insurance at any given time during 2009."

    But that does not mean that all 45 mn people spend every day of 2009 without insurance. It is a point estimate - on any particular day, there will be 45 mn individuals without health insurance. 

    [Source: CBO, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," December 18, 2008, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/12-18-KeyIssues.pdf]

    Myth: "Government-run universal health care would increase the international competitiveness of U.S. companies."

    The Congressional Budget Office disagrees.

    "Replacing employment-based health care with a government-run system could reduce employers' payments for their workers' insurance, but the amount that they would have to pay in overall compensation would remain essentially unchanged," the CBO says. "Cash wages and other forms of compensation would have to rise by roughly the amount of the reduction in health benefits for firms to be able to attract the same number and types of workers."

    [Source: CBO, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," December 18, 2008, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/12-18-KeyIssues.pdf]

    Myth: "The cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured significantly increases hospital costs."

    Hospitals provided about $35 bn in uncompensated care in 2008, the CBO says. Uncompensated care represented only 5% of total hospital revenues. In addition, half of the $35 bn in uncompensated hospital costs were offset by Medicare and Medicaid.

    And the cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured is "unlikely to have a substantial effect on private payment rates," the CBO says, adding that shifting costs from uninsured to private insurance premiums is "likely to be relatively small."

    [source: CBO, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," December 2008, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/12-18-KeyIssues.pdf]

    Myth: "Nationalized health care would not impact patient waiting times."

    Waiting time for elective surgery is lower in the US than in countries with nationalized health care.

    In 2005, only 8% of U.S. patients reported waiting four months or more for elective surgery.

    Countries with nationalized health care had higher percentages with waiting times of four months or more, including Australia (19%); New Zealand (20%); Canada (33%); and the United Kingdom (41%). 

    [Source: Commonwealth Fund, "MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL: AN INTERNATIONAL UPDATE ON THE COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE OF AMERICAN HEALTH CARE," by Karen Davis, Cathy Schoen, Stephen C. Schoenbaum, Michelle M. Doty, Alyssa L. Holmgren, Jennifer L. Kriss, and Katherine K. Shea, May 2007, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Fund%20Report/2007/May/Mirror%20%20Mirror%20on%20the%20Wall%20%20An%20International%20Update%20on%20the%20Comparative%20Performance%20of%20American%20Healt/1027_Davis_mirror_mirror_international_update_final%20pdf.pdf]

    Myth: "Insurers cover less today than they did in the past."

    No they're covering more costs. According to the CBO, consumers paid for 33 % of their total, personal health care expenditures in 1975. But by 2000, consumers' personal share had fallen to 17%, and it declined to 15% in 2006. 

    [Source: CBO, "Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals," December 18, 2008, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9924/12-18-KeyIssues.pdf]

RSS Subscribe to Comments

KO

John Edward, Nice try impersonating a democrat. No true democrat would admit that they are annoyed at fox news for using facts. You left out calling Fox and all republicans racists, but at least you did hit the class warfare talking point and pointed out that their motive is to help the mega rich.

June 23, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Brandon

If everybody was required to read the truth we wouldn't be debating what we are in congress.

June 23, 2009 at 1:24 pm

dan

This artcle isn'y anty less skewed than the ones from the other MSM outlets. While it's true that the law mandates everyone who shows up at emergency rooms must be treated, insurance or not, so yes if somebody needs minor treatment they will taken care of, However it doesn't mention that if the need heart bypass surgury, the ER isn';t going to treat them, and they are not going to get the surgery and the WILL die. Moreover, while there is certainly validity to all the points made, it's hardly the unfettered truth, it's FOX's skewed and cherry picked version of THEIR truth.

June 23, 2009 at 1:24 pm

william lucas

The one thing I have not seen in any discussion about health care is NATURAL HEALING - this would bring down the cost of HEALTH CARE a whole heck of alot. It does work I have been using it for over 30 years. I use the MEDICAL profession to do diagnostic work and that is about it. When i went to my doctor many years ago the only thing he offered me was a life time of phamaceutical drugs for HIGH CHOLESTEROL and HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. I said no thanks and fixed both without drugs. High Cholesterol does not cause heart disease - in fact when you are over 70 you better have High Cholesterol if you want to live longer and healthier. So again I ask why is NATURAL healing not in our HEALTH CARE. Are you aware of the LAW in this country that states ONLY DRUGS CAN CURE. EXAMPLE: SCURRVEY - cure it with VITAMIN C. Not a drug but it cures the problem.

June 23, 2009 at 1:24 pm

sandy wilson

how can they get away with telling such untruths! this is criminal. fox needs to get the message out. find a messenger to refute all the lying. there has to be someone that the american people trust with this message.

June 23, 2009 at 1:24 pm

R Horton

It would seem that by putting more dollars in educating doctors and nursing staff along with more hospitals that we could drive the cost down of health care by using good old competition for services. If doctors offices had to be open on weekends to get patients and lower the costs of office visits from 150 to 75 due to competition then the need for heath care reform would not be needed. It is a basic law of supply and demand, Obama wants to raise demand by adding more insureds to an already crowded system, increase the doctors, give PA'2 more authority, add more surgeons, wew are going to need them anyway to help our aging population.

June 23, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Marilynm

A factual report - most people simply do not understand the percentages and if given the proper information would reject government controlled health care. Lowering the costs would come from lowering mal-practice awards, reasonable limits on prescription medicine and not requiring so many needless test to protect doctors from law suits.

June 23, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Robert

Wow, very informative, and very incorrect. Health care reform is all about saving the middle class. The poor and rich do not need reform because they are covered. The poor have no real assets, so they are covered by the state. The rich, well they are all good. The middle class suffer in paying the $15,000 a year family premiuns, so if one makes $60,000 a year. How can one afford to spend 25% of a budget on health insurance? Your article is full of disinformation.

June 23, 2009 at 1:20 pm

JTF

Thanks - the business of healthcare is complex with many stakeholders, but when folks better know the facts and trade-offs, more informed and better decisions will be made. A phase 2 analysis could be about stronger market-based and tax treatment options to a nationalized health system.

June 23, 2009 at 1:20 pm

Henry

Hey, but Obama just created or saved 150,000 jobs!!! With the Universal Health Care, Obama will save or create health insurrance for 45 million people!! The save and create logics, there's a lot of thing Obama can do for our country!!

June 23, 2009 at 1:19 pm

rt

Carefully chosen source material combined with a skewed analysis of that material generates the exact same talking points developed by the big insurance/drug company lobby. These are almost the exact same sources and analysis presented early on in Senate Finance which have been debunked by independent analysts. Good job as always Faux News for reporting the corporate talking points to convince working people to vote against their own best interests. You are very good at what you do...to bad it is destroying this country and making your viewers suffer by their own hand.

June 23, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Bob

What a worthless article. These are just opinions. Highly slanted opinions too. Don't buy into all of this foxnews rhetoric. It is a simple idea. Whatever the fat cat insurance companies can do, the government can do the same but not take a profit. That guarantees the same care at a lower cost. Also, if you increase the sized of the pool of insured people, that automatically means you are spreading the risk across more people and lowering the cost of insuring each person.

June 23, 2009 at 1:15 pm

GT

Here's the real issue, not all of Americans want Obamacare. But we will all end up paying for it. If the government wants to get into healthcare why dont the start an insurance plan that people can choose to buy. Then the government can tax those who choose that plan. The President, senators and congress can make up the difference by paying higher taxes. Leave the rest of us alone.

June 23, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Anna

Informative. However, I do believe the statistics revealing those without health insurance is a little skewed. Just because a family has a yearly income of $50,000 to $65,000 does not mean they can afford health insurance. When taking into account mortgage/rent payments, the high cost of gas, clothing and food, skyrocketing utility bills, and educational costs, most in this income bracket are stretched beyond the limit. The high cost of health insurance is just not feasible for many families. When faced with losing health benefits at work due to cutbacks, my family looked to private insurance. For husband and wife, with decent coverage/deductibles/co-pays, we were looking at a price of over $1000 per month just for the 2 of us. If we needed coverage for minor children, the cost would have been much greater. With our current expenses (which are minimal compared to other families) we could not afford it. We ended up keeping some employer sponsored insurance and bought an individual plan for the other person. This plan is minimal in coverage (high deductible, larger copays, and very minimal prescription drug coverage) and it is still costing a small fortune. Many people opt out of their employer sponsored insurance because of the extreme cost involved. Just because it is insurance through an employer does not automatically mean it is affordable. Again, with all the financial obligations facing families, some things (like health insurance) is just not within the budget.

June 23, 2009 at 1:13 pm

kryten

Well, this article proves once agin that facts do not make any sense unless you fit the m in the theory. I respect FOX NEWS very much for the honest facts, but the theory presented in this article is a very poor quality. Let's see: 1)Myth: “The U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.” "Moreover, the ranking doesn’t take into account that the US has a diverse, heterogeneous population" which is because US has the highest income spread (more poor people) in the civilized countries. Who rearly will visit doctor. "Plus, the U.S. has a high rate of teen pregnancies, teens who smoke, who take drugs, who are obese and uneducated, all factors which cause higher infant mortality rates." Let's remember that infant mortality is just an evidence pointg toward the low affordability of the health care and these two "counterargument" are actuly argument which support the basic premise: The US public healcare system is on average worse then in other developed countries. 2)“About 46 mn Americans lack access to health insurance.” OK, 46 mn lack acsess to affordable health insurance. Do you think that affordabolity is a discussable? I dont think so, because right each persons (not the goverment) deside whether he/she can afford it or not. Spme persons eligible for a goverment programs but uninsured? OK, that means that a) public health care suck b)if they will be insured- do this program have enough mone to support them?

June 23, 2009 at 1:12 pm

LoneC

I love articles that attempt to "bust myths" by using estimates, biased "likelihoods", and excuses such as teen obesity.

June 23, 2009 at 1:12 pm

Daniel Cleary

I am listening to the press conference now and the one item that is always missing is the fact that doctors and hospitals are still "for profit" institutions. The biggest part of the health care problem is that the payments by are already socialized porttion of our health care are only 60-80% of market price. In other words the government already dictates what is feels shoul dbe the cost of services. If this mentality is used accross a majority of the insured under a Universal health care system, Hospitals will no longer be able to stay open as "for profit" instituations. They will eventually be at the mercy of the government run health care system dictating costs and payments.

June 23, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Traci Li

Will all the politicians have the same govt healthcare? It would be like so many communist countries where the "working class" get govt healthcare and the "politician class" get the special govt healthcare.

June 23, 2009 at 1:09 pm

B

Awesome job Fox! Way to stand up for the health insurers! Somebody's gotta step up and defend those obscene profits. Let's get some tea parties going to support the health insurance industry! Nobama! Nobama!

June 23, 2009 at 1:08 pm

Mike

In response to the posting from John Edward, amazing how you are ok with MSM and the Democratic News (CNN) making statements specific to health care that are not fact based, but an article like this causes you concern. If this new administration actually wanted to do the right thing, versus just slamming in their agenda to grow government, it's exactly this type of informaiton that needs to be debated before votes are cast. You seem extremely threatened (as are all Democrats) by any news that doesn't support your angle.. Must shock you when a news article isn't actually aligned with your agenda, there are news sources out there other than CNN adn MSN!

June 23, 2009 at 1:08 pm

Paul -Indiana

Yes, indeed!. Medical coverage is not the same as Medical Insurance.

June 23, 2009 at 1:05 pm

tocan

Fox usually does, to use fear to scare folks, especially less bright,elderly, poorly educated viewers/readers who make up most of Fox supporters, in a thinly veiled attempt to turn public opinion against ANYTHING that is progressive and/or Democratic . ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Why don't liberals just leave the country? Name one good progressive liberal policy that is not bankrupting the country. You can't because there isn't one. Liberals hate when the true facts come out and begin with name calling. They spew what has been given them by their collective group with absolutely no individual thought. Here's a good Idea all you registered Democrats pay for what you want and leave the rest of us alone. Pony up out of your pocket and pay for your social engineering but leave my pocket alone.

June 23, 2009 at 1:05 pm

PJ

I agree with Dr. Marsh's comments. Medicaid and Medicare authorize only X amount of visits to a physician each year but authorize unlimited ER visits. In order to not use up their physicial office visits, Medicare and Medicaid flock to the ER which is much more expensive than a physician's office visit. This is probably the biggest reason our ER's are clogged to the point that they are. This demonstrates just one of the flaws of a beurocratic, government run health care system. Another example is Tricare, which is the insurance provided our soldiers and militray retirees. It is increasingly difficult to find a Primary Care Provider or a Specialist who accepts Tricare. Reason...too much beurocracy and not enough pay.

June 23, 2009 at 1:03 pm

cacougfan

No doubt, this is a tough issue. Good to see this side of the issue. However, I would prefer to see the other side of this as well, in a debate style. Fact is, insurance rates for health care are rising at unsustainable levels. There needs to be a way to counteract this problem. Hopefully this debate will at least rein in the greed and unscrupulous practices used by some insurers. Healthcare needs to be affordable, it should not put the middle class into dire straits just for basic health care used a couple times a year for treatment of simple issues like strep etc...I think just the threat of competition from a government sponsored insurance program might have positive results regarding pricing.

June 23, 2009 at 1:02 pm

Trey

Government can't run Medicaid or Medicare efficiently. Social Security is broke. What makes ANYONE think they can take over healthcare compitently? Fix the above 3 then we'll talk. Till then, hands off.....

June 23, 2009 at 1:02 pm

about this blog

  • Elizabeth MacDonald is the stocks editor for Fox Business Network. She is recognized as one of the top prize-winning business journalists in the country, and has received 14 awards, including the top prize in business journalism, the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business Journalism, and the Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism.

browse posts

most popular posts