Think Twice about HillaryCare

Why HillaryCare, universal health care, is not the answer. From the WSJ:

Why is cancer death falling? One leading reason has been the positive health effects from a decline in smoking. Tobacco use has tumbled by about half since the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the health hazards of smoking. The other major factors are early detection and better treatment. Both are the result of medical innovation funded by government, private donations, and profit-making bio-medical and pharmaceutical companies. Colonoscopies, mammograms and other tests are more widely publicized and utilized. And new drug therapies, less punishing and invasive than surgery or chemotherapy, have been developed thanks to the incentives of a private medical marketplace.

This is in marked contrast to the anti-cancer record of government-run health systems elsewhere in the world. As Michael Tanner, health-care expert at the Cato Institute, notes: "Because cancer is a slow moving and expensive disease to treat, it is not cost-effective under socialized medicine to treat the disease too aggressively. This saves governments money but at a high human cost.

And there is progress on the environmental front as well:

One myth about cancer is that our industrial society is pumping poisons into the air and water that put us at ever greater risk of cancer. But studies indicate that about 2% of cancer diagnoses are a result of environmental pollutants. Air and water quality have dramatically improved over the past 30 years, and air pollution carcinogens are down by 54% nationwide, according to Environmental Protection Agency data. Only 4% of cancers are a result of occupational hazards, despite lawsuits from such things as exposure to asbestos. Economic growth and the freedom that produces it are reducing, rather than increasing, cancer risks.