Cheeky propaganda

There are many ways to convince politicians to raise taxes, expand the government, regulate the economy and interfere more with every day life of people. One way is to pinpoint a very short period of time when some number is high, and use that number when speaking about certain conditions in general. A very popular method to say the least although it is on the boundaries of being called a lie! Lets take an example:

Rather than admit they have been overstating the number of uninsured by a factor of two and make an embarrassing retraction, which might tend to deflate the campaign, Cover the Uninsured Week continues to claim there are 44 million uninsured. The only possible way to explain this is that they take refuge in the CBO's finding that the original, faulty government statistic does happen to be roughly equivalent to the number of Americans who lack insurance at any specific point in time, rather than for the entire year. (#)

In a similar way I could for example say that I have cold coffee in my cup now (later finding out it wasn't really that cold). Does that mean that cold coffee as such is a problem for me? No, because the coffee-machine is not far away, and I normally have hot coffee whenever I want, and it usually stays warm when I'm drinking it (although it doesn't now because I'm writing this post). I could however create the cold-coffee problem because the coffee could get cold at some time and we don't want that ever to happen, do we?

Why is it not such a good thing that noise-making groups like Cover the Uninsured Week use and abuse flawed statistics in order to receive attention from the politicians? Because it might lead to increased government expansion, and in the case of government-run health care systems, that could mean that "having coverage does not always guarantee access" to medical care. Icelanders know that all too well, with long waiting-lists and a financially crippled health-care system (although government-contributions to it are in historical high).

I urge the reader to read the full article and think about it's final words, which more or less apply for all markets:

A better goal would be to restore to America's largely socialized health care system the market processes where producers compete to provide consumers with value, and consumers keep costs down by patronizing efficient producers and avoiding inefficient producers. That patient-centered process has begun with the introduction this year of health savings accounts, and it will do more to provide quality, affordable health care to the masses than a century of Cover the Uninsured Weeks.

Right? Right. I have said it again and I will say it now: Let the government do whatever it wants, as long as it stays out of important things like health-care and education!

In more detail: More reading-material. A few words on information asymmetry and the health-care market.