No Anecdotes Please

The election this fall made it clear that our health-care system needed reform. Costs are escalating much faster than inflation and many people are uninsured. The changes we make will need to be carried out thoughtfully. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the debate will be in the form of articles like this one in the Atlantic, where anecdotes take the place of data that explains bigger picture issues.

In places the article mentions the big issues we'll have to deal with: Do we want everyone to have the same coverage or are we okay if the rich can buy better care? Do we want government making decisions about treatments (or insurance companies - an alternative the author doesn't consider)? How does government control affect innovation in health-care? How much are we willing to pay for care?

Although it mentions these questions, the article doesn't really answer them, and doesn't supplement the anecdote with any data to at least get us closer to the answers. So instead, we get a very superficial article about health-care masquerading as something relevant. In reality though, many people will read it - and many articles like it - and decide how they feel about more / less centralized medicine based on the one anecdote. (I haven't seen Micheal Moore's movie, but I have heard it is similar, although from the other side.)

If you have ever heard Senate debate on policy / legislation issues, you know that they also focus on anecdotes. And so I fear that we will end up with bad policy unless the debate begins to include actual information on the real ways different approaches will affect health-care in general. Will centralized medicine prevent drugs like the one in the story from being made? Will everyone be denied more expensive treatments or just the poor? We need to answer these questions through real data, not emotional stories.