What’s the poll number that really drives Obamacare supporters wild?
Fred Barnes reveals that it is this one: “Eighty-nine percent of Americans in a June 2008 ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey said they were satisfied with their health care. Put another way, more than 270 million Americans (I’m including kids) are reasonably happy with the system of medical care in this country. Other polls have found the same level of satisfaction.”
Barnes notes that US citizens, unlike most people around the globe, enjoy “first-rate care almost everywhere, day or night. But there’s a more important reason: If you have a serious ailment, your chances of survival are better when treated in America than anywhere else in the world. Sure, the system has flaws, shortcomings, and inefficiencies. It probably costs too much. But if your goal is to live longer, then American doctors and American hospitals are your best bet.”
The survival statistics for cancer and heart disease (read the whole piece) are astonishing and could not have been achieved under a government-run system. The goal of health care reform should be to extend our system to those citizens who currently can’t avail themselves of it and to find more economical ways to deliver health care. It should not be to overhaul the world’s very best medical system.