Last week, NationalJournal.com reported on Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., whose opening statement on the House's health care reform bill in July has now amassed more than 2.7 million views on YouTube. With so many people looking to the video for their health care arguments, how true are Rogers' main points about H.R. 3200 and the debate in general?

Rogers: It's Section 141... they can actually go in and disenroll individuals.... If you're an employer [with] $250,000 of payroll -- that's gross payroll, not much -- guess what? They can disenroll your whole company off a certain plan.

Section 141 of the House bill simply establishes the Health Choices Administration. The more controversial section Rogers was referring to is Section 142, which lays out the responsibilities and authority of the new agency's commissioner. That person will be charged with making sure plans are enrolled in the Health Insurance Exchange and that plans in the exchange are offering adequate benefits for an affordable price.

If a plan is not up to standard, the bill gives the commissioner power to levy fines or "[suspend] enrollment of individuals under such plan." However, this would only stop continued enrollment in the plan, not force people from their current insurance. For plans that continue to fall below requirements, the commissioner would work with state regulators to terminate the plan. This step would be taken only after warnings, and enrollees would be re-entered in the health insurance exchange to choose another comparable plan.

So Rogers' explanation of the section is technically right, but it comes with a caveat. Rather than the government being able to indiscriminately disenroll individuals and businesses from plans, people would only be removed from substandard plans after repeated warnings and attempts to correct those plans.

Rogers: Here's the other tradeoff. According to... the National Cancer Intelligence Centre for the United Kingdom and the Canadian Cancer Registry, here's the tradeoff that they picked by having government-run health care. If you get prostate cancer, you have a less chance of survivability than you do in the United States. And that's the same for skin cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, and the list goes on and on and on.

Rogers' office cites statistics from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Intelligence Centre in the U.K. and the Canadian Cancer Registry. They show that for most kinds of cancer, the five-year survival rates in the United States are higher than in Britain or Canada, which both have single-payer systems. The fact that Britain's cancer survival rates are low have been well-reported; according to a study in The Lancet Oncology, England's five-year overall cancer survival rates were fifth-worst out of 22 countries. Canada's survival rates are much closer to those in the United States. According to the data supplied by Rogers' office, Canada was within 7 percentage points of the United States on all but brain cancer, with most falling within 3 points. Canada actually leads the United States on cervical and pancreatic cancers.

Additionally, that same Lancet study noted that other countries with single-payer systems have comparable rates to the United States, including Finland, Sweden and Iceland. In fact, Cuba's system even showed a higher survival rate for breast cancer, although researchers admit that may have been due to poor record-keeping.

The Washington Post fact-checked a similar claim by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on prostate cancer. The newspaper noted that a key reason for the difference in survival rates was that the United States has an emphasis on early screening, while Britain is several years behind. Those early screenings catch the disease earlier and increase the chance of survival, so it's reasonable to think that Britain's rate will improve.

Coming next week: NationalJournal.com interviews Rogers.

More in Health Care Go to section

September 04, 2010 | National Journal

Health Care Reform: 'The Gift That Didn't Give'

August 31, 2010 | health care

Pawlenty Sets Roadblocks For Health Law In Minnesota

August 30, 2010 | health care

Senate May Consider Stem Cell Legislation

August 26, 2010 | health care

Salmonella Strains Found In Feed At Two Iowa Farms

August 25, 2010 | health care

Will Health Law Provision Suffer Fate Of 'Doc Fix'?