Real Life Cognitive Accuracy

The arguments over health care reform have produced a lot of wild claims, some for, lots against. How do we, as average American consumers of health care, distinguish the heat from the light? In this article from the New York Times, Paul Krugman demonstrates one method: look deeper, get more of the story than the headline, consider the numbers, etc.

Krugman addresses three myths he says are "believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin":

1. That Obama's plan is a "government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health." This argument fails on several levels, mainly for a lack of specificity. Krugman responds that two-thirds of the health dollars spent in the US either already comes from the US government or comes out of the pockets of those without health care coverage. Only one-third comes from insurance companies. Did you know that? I didn't! When you have those numbers at hand, the argument about a "take-over" falls apart.

2. That the health care reform bills coming up for a vote "do nothing to cut costs." Krugman notes:

To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

The problem with this "fact" is that it leaves out the fact that the "slightly higher" spending, about 1% higher than what is predicted if reform fails, would actually include coverage for an additional 35 million Americans! So we pay a tiny bit more and get something closer to universal coverage. What's more, in the second decade after the passage of the current proposed program, the numbers look even better. Sounds like a good deal when you include more facts!

3. That the reform program doesn't pay for itself. This flies in the face of the CBO's report that shows it does in fact pay for itself while increasing coverage for those who need it most. Krugman notes that critics of the program justify this myth by saying that when things get tough, some future Congress will loosen the controls and let the costs rise. But that says nothing about the program, only about Congress, and Krugman notes that this has not happened with cost controls on Medicare--those already enacted have "stuck" despite changes in budgets and revenues.

So there you have it: a real-life exercise in how to read between the lines, or rather, how to read the whole sentence instead of just the part that supports your personal confirmation bias.