Reagan: "Socialized medicine hazardous to health"

Does anybody actually read this boob? In this hit-piece, originally titled "National Health Care Can Kill," he scatters clumsy lies and cracked logic to try and scare us all into continuing to bankrupt ourselves and our country with our monumentally stupid health-care system. In parts left out of the substantially longer original, Reagan tells us that everything's better for Americans, who get the jazziest new drugs sooner because national systems take time to do their own testing and negotiate prices. We don't do that negotiating -- sorry, we are prevented by law from doing it -- leaving most of us unable to afford them anyway. I didn't check the stats on personal bankruptcies related to health costs, care to take a guess?

Need facts? Check out Fig 1.2 on this page from UK Cancer Research, one example of many sources I found with a quickie Google search. The highest incidence of breast cancer per capita? US. The lowest in the developed world? Japan, which also has the lowest mortality rate and the most extensive government health-care system.

The press is supposed to help make us smarter voters, that's its constitutional function. Crap like this gives the whole profession a black eye. You can print lies and distortion and call it opinion, but if you don't call them out, as a journalist you're either falling down on the job or actively participating in the fraud.