Here are five such myths. Each is widely repeated, deeply held — and dead wrong.

1.) We need more government to insure poor Americans.

Government has been providing health coverage to low-income patients for over 40 years. The results are hardly encouraging.

Witness
Medicaid. The quality of care beneficiaries receive is exceedingly
poor. Heart attack victims covered by Medicaid, for instance, are less
likely to receive state-of-the-art care than their privately insured
counterparts — and they're more than twice as likely to die as a
result of their illness.

Because of low reimbursement levels,
physicians are reluctant to treat Medicaid patients. A 2003 study found
that primary care physicians were five times more likely to reject
Medicaid beneficiaries than patients with private insurance.

The last thing this country needs is to expand a failing public insurance system.

2.) 46 million Americans do not have health insurance.

This
Census Bureau figure is often spun as proof that America's healthcare
system is in awful shape and failing many in this country.

Included
in the Bureau's count, though, are more than 10 million non-citizens
and approximately 14 million people who are eligible for public
healthcare programs but haven't enrolled. Plus, nearly 10 million of
the uninsured have household incomes of more than $75,000.

Far too many Americans go without health insurance, but the number of chronically uninsured is nowhere close to 46 million.

3.) Universal health coverage can be achieved by government mandate.

According
to the federal census, nearly two-thirds of the uninsured are aged 18
to 34. This makes sense — healthy people aren't going to pay for
expensive insurance they'll never use.

Those who support an
"individual mandate" believe that by requiring all Americans to buy
health insurance, the formerly uninsured young and healthy will
increase the size of the risk pool and therefore lower premiums for
everyone.

The problem is, some states require insurers to
charge everyone the same rate. So young people would end up paying far
more in premiums than they should — or could — pay.

The real
way to attract young adults into the insurance market is to lower
premiums. This can be done by reducing costly benefit mandates and
allowing people to buy insurance across state lines.

4.) Prescription drug importation will save patients money.

At
most, foreign drug importation would save Americans one percent on
healthcare costs over the next decade, according to the Congressional
Budget Office.

At the same time, purchasing drugs from places
outside the United States raises tremendous safety concerns. Many
foreign drug factories avoid FDA screenings; a hearing in the House of
Representatives last year found that foreign factories are inspected
once every 13 to 30 years on average.

5.) The state-run healthcare systems in Canada and Europe are better and cheaper than America's.

People
who make this claim usually point to the fact that life expectancy is
higher in Canada and Europe. But life expectancy is influenced by a
number of variables aside from the quality of a country's healthcare
system — like diet, genetics, exercise, smoking, pollution, and even
marital status.

A study published last year in the British
medical journal Lancet Oncology suggests that America is better at
treating cancer than Europe or Canada. Researchers found that Americans
have a better survival rate for 13 of the 16 most prominent cancers.

This
study's findings tell us more about the quality of a healthcare system
than life expectancy rates do because the relationship between
treatment and outcomes is more direct.

A single-payer health
system with a global budget — like Canada has — results in long
waiting lists, rationed care, and a dearth of the latest technological
equipment.

If our leaders recognize these five myths, we can expect healthcare reform that works for all Americans. Let's hope they do.