Smart bombs: Dying to be the best

Conservative candidates for president all start with the same premise when it comes to health care in the United States: We have the best doctors, best hospitals and the highest quality care. By way of proof, they ask this rhetorical question: “When the richest people around the world get sick, where do they come for care?”

No offense, but so what? Other than the rich themselves, who cares if we have the best health care when cost isn’t a consideration? The truth is that overall health care in the United States does not rate high in international comparisons in many important ways, even though we easily outspend those countries on a per capita basis.

The latest example comes from a study at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Its researchers found that the United States ranked last among the 19 countries studied in preventing premature deaths in 2002-03. Implicit in the results is that about 101,000 American patients per year with conditions such as hypertension, tuberculosis and colon and cervical cancers would have survived if they resided in the top-performing countries of France, Japan and Australia. What’s more, the United States was the only country that didn’t show improvement over the previous five years.

It’s no coincidence that we’re the only country in the study that doesn’t provide health coverage for all citizens. But, hey, when the rich need specialized care, we’re to die for.

Pay checked. The best argument against Washington state’s minimum wage is that it is the highest in the country. That’s not to say that it is historically high when adjusted for inflation, because it isn’t. But being No. 1 in that category can turn off businesses that might otherwise move here. It can cause them to think that we’re anti-business in general.

That’s why it would be better if the rate were the same in each state. But because the federal rate is so ridiculously low, some states have stepped in. The federal minimum wage hit its peak purchasing power in 1968, when it was $1.60 an hour. If it had kept pace with inflation, it would be $9.49 an hour today. Instead, it is $5.85 on the federal level (and in Idaho) and $8.07 in Washington. That’s less than I made as a 14-year-old.

And the beat goes on. The following memo – posted online at Romenesko, a media information Web site (you can get there from www.poynter.org) – is from an Associated Press editor to his Southern California staff:

“Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney [Spears] is a big deal. That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.”

That’s a relief.