Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.activism,talk.politics.misc
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Harel posts a particularly clumsy lie.  (Was Re: "STRONG FAMILY VALUES" (III) (1))
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:57:55 GMT
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              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

Folks, what we have here appears to be some rank stupidity that is
even beyond Harel's usual level.  Looky looky looky...

Oh, and Harel, stop the immature Followup-To lines redirecting to less
commonly read groups.

In article <9208192139.AA01280@poly.math.cornell.edu> harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai) writes:

>We're Number One in percentage of population without health insurance.

>             ============================================
>                 Percentage of population covered by
>                  public health insurance, 1990(25)
>             ============================================

I wonder how many of the people who read this article noticed the
little word "public" in the caption here?  So hey, Harel, what's the
point of the table?  Who cares where we rank in percentage of the
population with PUBLIC health insurance?  

So hey, were you trying to mislead or did you just screw up?

>                    COUNTRY      PERCENT  

>                    Australia      100    
>                    Canada         100    

...
>                    United States   21  

>Sources: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris),
>Health Data file, 1991: U.S.: National Center for Heath Statistics, Advance
>Data, No. 201, June 18, 1991.

>"The main reason we're Number One in percentage of population without
>health insurance...

Note that Harel posts no evidence for this.  He just lets us mislead
ourselves by providing an irrelevant table.

So hey, Harel, what do you mean "Number One"?  Are you really a stupid
enough liar to claim that a larger percentage of Americans are
uninsured than, for example, Bangladeshis?

I'm not sure whether I should believe that you are stupid enough to
post a lie this stupid or that you are stupid enough to actually
believe this.

>is that we're last in percentage of population
>covered by public health insurance. Only about one fifth of Americans
>qualify for the main types of public health insurance available in the
>United States: Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' benefits.(2l)

>"Of those who don't qualify, many have private insurance.(22) But
>almost one in seven Americans (34 million people--most living in
>families with a working adult) have no insurance at all, and one in
>four (63 million) have been without insurance for a substantial period
>of time during the last two years. Many more have inadequate coverage,
>meaning that they could be bankrupted by a major illness.(23) In fact,
>one health care expert says that because only 1 percent of the
>population has private longterm-care insurance, "virtually any
>American could be impoverished by a prolonged disabling illness."(24)
>Additionally, as many as 40 percent of those eligible for some forms
>of public aid do not receive it. These gaps in health care result
>directly from the fact that the United States is the only major
>industrialized nation (other than South Africa) without a national
>health insurance plan providing universal coverage while controlling
>costs.

>From: 

> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
>_We're Number One, Where America Stands -- and Falls -- in the New    
>World Order_ by Andrew L Shapiro.   
-- 
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,talk.politics.misc