T.R. Reid's Book Shatters 'Socialized Medicine' Health Care Reform Myths

T.R. Reid, author of the health care reform book titled "The Healing of America," deserves credit for destroying myths that so-called ObamaCare would involve socialized medicine or long waiting lines, or that rationed care doesn't already exist.

In The Healing of America, T.R. Reid took a step that might baffle all of the ObamaCare health care reform critics by personally visiting nine other countries to explore their health care systems.

Health care reform books are hitting the shelves almost as fast as American health care costs continue to rise. Nobody can read all of the health care reform books but this reviewer has explored several, and Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid wins hands-down in bringing clarity and perspective.

In fact, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (no relation to T.R.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would do well to start quoting The Healing of America, because T.R. Reid explains matters in a far better way than they have done. Democrats, first of all, could cite Reid's work to short-circuit all of the Republican canards about socialized medicine and government-controlled health care and stealing their doctor, myths that are misleading the misinformed American public.

Worldwide Personal Research

Reid's personal research began even before Barack Obama hit the radar screen, won the presidency, and courageously tacked the health care reform quagmire that Bill Clinton quickly abandoned and George W. Bush never even touched.

Reid used funds from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation to visit Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and India. This is described in The Healing of America's subtitle, "A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care." He visited doctors and inquired not only about health care reform, but about his own aching shoulder. This leads to a highly engaging and easily readable presentation. A Miami Herald reviewer says, "T.R. Reid is like that great teacher you once had, who makes a potentially dull and ponderous subject entertaining and relevant."

A starting point for Reid is that among modern industrialized countries, only the United States does not provide a health care guarantee for everybody. In fact, 45 million people among 304 million have no insurance, and tens of millions more have minimum coverage. This is a moral question, Reid insists. However, Clinton compromised by framing this disparity in terms of economic development, and Obama constantly has tried to reassure the "haves" that they won't lose coverage as a consequence of including the less fortunate. Reid says the proper approach is to constantly hammer on the moral issue. In his dramatic comparison, a corporate executive earning $2.6 million and a domestic worker earning $26,000 both contract ovarian cancer at age 48. The wealthy middle-aged woman lives to 88 because she receives treatment; the domestic worker dies at age 50 for lack of the same.

Book Blows Up the Myths

As for the socialized medicine myths, Reid notes that in other industrialized countries with universal coverage, citizens still choose their own doctors and hospitals. In fact, citizens choose from insurers. The difference is that the insurers are nonprofit, and fees are universal, but it's still the private sector at work. To reinforce this point, Reid rips the liberal filmmaker Michael Moore ("Sicko") for describing other nations as enacting socialized medicine, because that's not the case. But in the United States, for-profit insurers spend 20 percent on administrative overhead, mostly to deny claims and cancel coverage and block people with pre-existing conditions. Administrative overhead in other nations averages less than 10 percent.

As for the rationed health care myth, health care is rationed everywhere. Should a 92-year-old receive a hip transplant? We can't do everything for everyone. In other nations, public boards explore these types of questions. In the United States, insurance companies make decisions behind the scenes. Which system should we perceive as best? With all of the denied claims issued by private insurers, why are we so critical of our government playing a role? Haven't we learned that while government may have flaws, so do corporations? At least with the government, we have a voice. And if the government is so terrible, why do most seniors love their Medicare? An irony of all of those angry town hall meetings last summer was the seniors who stood up and shouted, "We won't tolerate government-run health care, and don't you dare touch my Medicare!"

Myth III: But if the United States doesn't truly have "the best health care in the world," then why do people travel here for surgical procedures? Reid again explains. For the wealthy, America truly offers the best doctors, the best clinics (think Mayo Clinic), the best research facilities, the best university hospitals. But we're talking about the upper class. That's the key. For everyday people, other countries do better. So when a proponent of the status quo argues that the United States has "the best health care on the world," the response should be, "Yes. But for whom?"

Pick the Best Ideas from Others

Reid doesn't worship at the altars of the foreign countries in terms of health care reform. Canada indeed has long waiting lines for non-emergency procedures, Britain limits certain kinds of care, Japan underpays doctors and nurses. Still, all in all, T.R. Reid asserts that dozens of other countries have health care systems that are "better, cheaper and fairer" than exist in the United States' one-of-a-kind hodgepodge. He urges us to pick the best aspects from among the foreign nations, rather than becoming stuck in an outlook of "American exceptionalism" in which we constantly feel superior to everyone else.

Read T.R. Reid's The Healing of America with an open mind. Become a well-informed citizen on the topic of health care reform, rather than claiming you "don't understand" or worse yet, reacting to the reactionaries. No issue on our political agenda, other than war-and-peace national security, is more important, and Congress will face the brass tacks at the start of 2010.