The Things We Know

A United States Senator from Texa, John Cornyn, responded to the US Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare  with the standard Republican line: We have the best health care system in the world, which, of course, he went to say Obamacare can only ruin.

This statement of fact, uncontested by Judy Woodruf and never challenged by any reporter on reputable television, is important because it means if we fiddle with the best, we are in the position of fixing what isn’t broken, of breaking a finely engineered machine.

Don’t you love hearing we have the best of everything in the USA?

We are number one.

Before the US News and World Reports started ranking hospitals and medical schools, I used to hear this from patients all the time: “Oh, my cardiologist is one of the top ten cardiologists.” They never gave a frame of reference, so I assumed they meant “In the world and of all time.”

And now that we have the USN&WR rankings, we believe whatever they tell us, no questions asked.

Of course, we have among the highest infant mortality. We rank 49^th in post operative infections, and we rank lower than every European country save Greece in emergency room waiting times, and we have the fourth highest complication rate following cardiac bypass surgery and knee replacement surgery and we have the third  highest error rate in reading of diagnostic  X rays, and we have the highest rate of X Ray induced cancer in the world and we lead the world in rejections for medical care by authorities, whether insurance companies or government

I know all this the same way Mr. Cornyn knows what he knows:  I just now made it up, or I want to believe it, or someone told me.

Someone told me: That’s the way Michele Bachmann knew vaccinations cause mental retardation.

Sometimes, when pressed, Americans will cite some bogus study for what they know.

Congressmen are particularly sure of what they know. Each has a staff feeding him information which supports whatever he wanted to say. That’s one of the wonders of the 21^st century and internet searches. There’s always somebody out there in cyberspace who says what you wanted to hear. In the New Hampshire House of Delegates a representative from Merrimack assured the eager throngs, in front of flashing cameras, that abortions cause breast cancer. When queried, she cited some lunatic chiropractor from Wisconsin, who also believes iodine can cure chronic fatigue, cancer, heart disease, what have you.

Deans of medical schools, learned men these, rip open their USN&WR to find out whether or not they have done well by their own medical schools, whether or not their ranking has risen. Heads roll and careers flourish based on these rankings, which, of course reflect little more than Hollywood gossip reflects who’s on top and who’s hot.

So why do we let these people in the game?  To quote the first episode of The Wire: “Got to man: This America.”