Sunday, June 7, 2009

Normal

This is just a little piece on how the statistics of normalcy can fool you. The normal of birth and death in the State of Florida is: It's normal to be born a Latino and die a Jew. How about that for a misleading statistic? My point, don't be fooled by what politicians and others say about percentage's of this and curves of that. The question you must always ask is, "Compared to what"? Everyone uses stats for their own purposes. The old saw, "Figures don't lie, liars figure" is more true today than ever. In the next few months as the President tries to get health care for everyone in this country, you will see some of the most extraordinary lies told by anti health care advocates, using statistics that can't possibly be proven. You will see particular comparisons of U.S. vs Canada or the U.K.. All the stories will be anecdotal rather than sold facts and figures. The Pres has a tough problem, but the bottom line is that this is the only advanced country in the World that doesn't take care of the health of all it's citizens. We can do it here without breaking the countries financial back. After all, the insurance companies have big buildings full of offices, computers, execs, workers plus stockholders who expect a profit and dividends. That's a lot of overhead that's not going toward our health care. Last I heard, we in the U.S. spend 2.7 trillion dollars per year on health care, and there are still 47 million people left out of the system. That's over $8,800/year for every man, woman and child in the country.
The End
Speak to you all soon.
The Old Philosopher