As an avid reader of The Michigan Daily, I'm quite familiar with columnist John Stiglich's recent work. Within the last year, Stiglich has lectured black families on the causes of poverty (In Dissent: Family ties, 11/04/2005), referred to Wal-Mart as a "poverty warrior" (Wal-mart: poverty warrior, 5/22/2006) and openly advocated torturing foreign captives because "you do what you have to do" (The politics of torture, 6/5/2006). Needless to say, I'm used to taking his columns with a grain of salt. But, Stiglich's most recent piece (A prescription for healthcare, 07/10/2006) cannot go unchallenged.

Though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established medical care as a fundamental right, according to Stiglich, the ability to see a doctor when you're sick is a privilege, "not a birth right." "Empirically," he writes, "universal healthcare is one of the worst ideas in the history of man."

A brief examination exposes this as an embarrassing and irresponsible characterization of the facts.

By almost every empirical measure, universal health care outperforms America's market-based system. Our system is more expensive than universal healthcare: According to an Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development report, we spend an average of 34 to 75 percent more as of GDP on healthcare than do developed nations with universal healthcare.

Despite that, a 2000 World Health Organization study ranked the performance of America's health care system an embarrassing 37th, behind many nations with universal healthcare. Forty-five million Americans don't have health insurance. When ill, they face the choice of paying for their treatment or letting their health deteriorate. Given the costs associated with the former, it's not surprising that many Americans choose the latter: A 2004 study found that Americans were the most likely to report not seeing a doctor when ill, not receiving recommended follow-up care and going without medication because of high costs.

We do eventually treat the uninsured - at taxpayer expense. In 2001 alone, treating the uninsured cost the U.S. government more than $30 billion.

Stiglich would have you believe that covering these Americans with a universal healthcare plan would be "less efficient." This is false: Studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accountability Office have estimated that the costs of covering all Americans would be offset by the administrative savings found in a universal system.

Even for Americans with health insurance, the America's market-oriented system is far from idyllic. A 2005 study found that Americans were the most likely out of the six nations polled to report having experienced one of four types of medical error. A 2004 study ranked America fifth out of six nations on wait times to see a doctor. Only 33 percent of Americans report being able to see a doctor the day they became sick, and 19 percent waiting six days or more. The four nations that finished ahead of America all have universal healthcare.

With a mountain of empirical evidence against him, how can Stiglich possibly maintain that universal healthcare is "one of the worst ideas in the history of man?" "Go into any hospital in Buffalo," he suggests, "and count the number of Canadians fleeing their utopian universal healthcare system to seek treatment in America."

Since counting the number of Canadians in American hospitals seems a laughable way of evaluating the adequacy of universal healthcare, I went ahead and did what Stiglich didn't do: research. In 2000, the WHO ranked the Canadian system higher than the American system in terms of its overall performance. Among developed nations, America ranks 23rd in terms of life expectancy and 27th in infant mortality - two imperfect, but oft-cited measures of quality of life. All of the nations ahead of us have publicly funded or universal healthcare. Canadians spend less per patient, less overall, and oh, by the way: All Canadians have coverage. It's not surprising, then, that in 1991 the GAO published a report that called on U.S. lawmakers to look to the Canadian system for guidance in reforming our broken system.

In sum: We pay more. We die earlier. Millions of Americans can't see a doctor when they're sick; the rest still face long waits and medical errors. Most of all, universal healthcare systems consistently rank higher than the American system by almost every measure. If all this is true, why are so many Americans still convinced that universal healthcare won't work?

Maybe they've been reading too much of Stiglich's work.

Adams is an alum and a former associate editorial page editor.