Ensign: Our Health System Is Way Better Than Europe’s — If You Don’t Count Gunshots and Auto Accidents

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
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In the Senate Finance Committee debate on health care reform this afternoon, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) brought up what he thought was a very good point: If you don’t count injuries from guns or car accidents, the U.S. health care system actually provides better outcomes than those in European and other industrialized countries.

“Are you aware that if you take out gun accidents and auto accidents, that the United States actually is better than those other countries?” Ensign said. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) had been citing the health care systems of France, Germany, Japan and Canada as more effective, but with lower costs.

Conrad responded that one can bend statistics in all sorts of ways.

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with health care. Auto accidents don’t have anything to do with h–,” Ensign said, cutting himself off. “I mean we’re just a much more mobile society. … We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system.”

Video after the jump.

Late update: We tracked down where Ensign got his argument. It’s none other than Betsy McCaughey, the first to say government health care would lead to forced euthanasia.

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