Lies and other Falsehoods

I was watching On the Record (Greta Van Susteren) last night. The topic was John Mackey's editorial in WSJ in which he offered an alternative reform to health insurance. Her first guest in that spot was Russell Mokhiber. I'ver never seen nor heard about him before. He was encouraging a boycott Whole Foods Grocery Stores (Mackey is CEO). Mr. Mokhiber said Mackey is a bad man for suggesting something other than a public option. He then said that there are 60 people dying everyday because they lack insurance; and in Canada there are none.

When someone throws out statistics, I immediately become wary. When those stats don't "feel" right, I immediately question. No one in Canada dies without insurance. Isn't that a comfort? You're dead but you had insurance when you died.

But I really questioned the "60" number. I got on the internet and found what he was referring to. The Institute of Medicine had done a report in 2003 that essentially determined how many people would have died if everyone had had insurance. Then they compared that to the number that had died. The difference was the assumed number that died without insurance.

There are many articles establishing the flaws in the study. But it was a number Mr. Mokhiber could use to his advantage. He threw it into his discussion and Greta didn't challenge it. Perhaps she had never heard it before and couldn't for that reason.

You really have to watch these people carefully.