LETTERS: WHO health rankings all about ideology
source: http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/who-health-rankings-all-about-ideology-62826437.html
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To the editor:
Why does the World Health Organization rate the United States 37th out of 191 nations on health care? The Web site www.nrlc.org notes:
"You'd assume these WHO rankings would reflect how likely you were to survive an illness or injury, or to live better and longer with a chronic condition. However, the WHO rankings give great weight to whether the evaluated health care system meets the organization's ideological preferences.
"The U.S. is penalized for things like allowing health savings accounts, not having a government-run health care system, and having an insufficiently progressive income tax system. ... The low U.S. grades on these overcome its advantage on the statistics that directly measure health outcomes, where WHO rates our country No. 1."
So were it not for these ideological biases, the United States would be first on the WHO's list. I don't see the point of abandoning the best health care system in the world in favor of an inferior government-run, European-style system simply because of clever statistics and ideologically biased rating systems.
The WHO ranking was mentioned recently by both Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith and letter writer Richard J. Mundy. Were they to investigate the means by which the WHO's statistics are obtained, they would find that, rather than bolstering their own position, the facts clearly lead one to the opposite conclusion.
Our health care system is far from perfect and could use some modifications (tort reform, increased portability, more individual consumer decision making), but a total European-style government takeover would be a serious mistake.
Gary Strabala
Alex Strabala
LAS VEGAS
Why does the World Health Organization rate the United States 37th out of 191 nations on health care? The Web site www.nrlc.org notes:
"You'd assume these WHO rankings would reflect how likely you were to survive an illness or injury, or to live better and longer with a chronic condition. However, the WHO rankings give great weight to whether the evaluated health care system meets the organization's ideological preferences.
"The U.S. is penalized for things like allowing health savings accounts, not having a government-run health care system, and having an insufficiently progressive income tax system. ... The low U.S. grades on these overcome its advantage on the statistics that directly measure health outcomes, where WHO rates our country No. 1."
So were it not for these ideological biases, the United States would be first on the WHO's list. I don't see the point of abandoning the best health care system in the world in favor of an inferior government-run, European-style system simply because of clever statistics and ideologically biased rating systems.
The WHO ranking was mentioned recently by both Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith and letter writer Richard J. Mundy. Were they to investigate the means by which the WHO's statistics are obtained, they would find that, rather than bolstering their own position, the facts clearly lead one to the opposite conclusion.
Our health care system is far from perfect and could use some modifications (tort reform, increased portability, more individual consumer decision making), but a total European-style government takeover would be a serious mistake.
Gary Strabala
Alex Strabala
LAS VEGAS
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