Speaking of health, and health care . . .

Paul Krugman misleads, as he often does, in today’s New York Times:

“Universal health insurance should be eminently affordable. After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.”

But the French freeload off American innovation! Can you name any new drugs or medical devices that are invented in France? Nearly all the world’s innovation comes from the relatively profit-driven American system. If we relied on government healthcare, the world would still be getting 1950’s quality care.

Also, it is by no means clear that the French get “excellent” care. When you account for "Fatal Injury" rates (mostly car accidents and murder), US life expectancy is higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation, including France. And this doesn't even account for the fact that Americans are four times as likely to be obese.

Given the abysmal advice that has been given by American health and nutrition experts for the past several decades, with high profile government activism such as the deadly "food pyramid", the idea of more government involvement in health care seems suicidal . . . literally as well as economically.