Giuliani Cites Faulty ‘Facts’ From Right-Wing Magazine To Slam ‘Socialized Medcine’

In a new radio ad running in New Hampshire, GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani cites his own experience with prostate cancer to warn against the dire consequences of government-provided health care, which he terms “socialized medicine”:

I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine.’

Listen here:

Giuliani’s ad is full of misleading right-wing claims that overhype the broken U.S. health care system. A look at his “facts”:

– Giuliani cites inaccurate statistics. While the rate for men with prostate cancer is slightly higher in the United States, the five-year survival rate in England is actually 74.4 percent according to the Office of National Statistics in Britain.

– Giuliani relies on unsourced figures from a right-wing think tank. Giuliani’s campaign confirmed that it obtained its faulty numbers from an article entitled “The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care” in the right-wing quarterly magazine City Journal, which is an arm of the conservative Manhattan Institute. As MSNBC notes, the author of the “Ugly Truth” article provided no sources for his “facts.” The Manhattan Institute receives funding from multiple pharmaceutical companies.

– Giuliani uses a weak measurement of comparison. Cancer experts note that mortality rates, which “show the number of people who actually die from the disease,” may be better measurements than five-year survival rates. Under this comparison, the two countries are even closer: “Age-standardized prostate cancer mortality rates are 15.4 per 100,000 people in the United Kingdom and 12.0 per 100,000 in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.”

The right wing consistently touts U.S. health care as the world’s finest. In an Aug. 3 op-ed, Giuliani wrote, “America has the best medical care in the world.” President Bush has claimed that the United States has “the best health care system in the world.” But in reality, the U.S. health system “spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance,” notes the World Health Organization.

Instead of complaining about Britain and bragging about America, Giuliani should turn his attention toward improving the U.S. health system. According to a CNN poll from May, 64 percent of the public believes the government should provide universal health care.

The Center for American Progress has put together a progressive plan to guarantee every American quality, affordable health coverage. View it HERE.

UPDATE: As Ezra Klein notes, Giuliani “received his care for prostate cancer while still mayor of New York, which meant he was probably receiving insurance through the state of New York, utilizing one of those government-regulated purchasing pools he terms ‘socialism.’”

UPDATE II: Greg Sargent points out that The New York Times asked Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella whether the campaign would continue to repeat the faulty statistics and continue to run the ad. Commella replied, “Yes. We will.“