Giuliani, kiss my ass. Or prostate.

Not only is Rudy Giuliani so douchey that his own daughter may very well vote for Obama, he's also full of it. In a new radio advertisement, Guiliani postures himself as a survivor of cancer. While I do not want to trivialize his experiences with a serious illness, I have no problems trivializing this piece of crap:

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and thank God I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.”

Multiple sources, including a recent Op-Ed by Paul Krugman, have pointed out that the statistics Giuliani mentions are simply unfounded. As review in Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Gee wowzers. A peer-reviewed publication with citations?! What a novel concept!) concluded:

Similarity of mortality rates between the two populations supports the hypothesis that risk of fatal prostate cancer among British men does not differ from that among U.S. white men.

Giuliani would like to have Americans believe that increasing health care coverage would somehow tank the quality of cancer care and cancer survival immediately. What he doesn't seem to even think about -- or care about -- are the scores and scores people who will not be able to find out that they have prostate cancer because they lack even basic medical coverage. This shameful reality is well-documented in literature on racial disparities in healthcare. As concluded in an article from the journal Cancer (Omg. Another peer-reviewed journal? Where do these things even come from?!):

For African-American men, the main barriers to timely diagnosis and screening identified in this study arose from their constrained opportunities for health care access and utilization, absence of strong ties to a primary physician, and a probably related reduced trust of physicians.

It seems that it's not socialized medicine that's hampering preventative care that would save lives, Mr. Giuliani. Perhaps, it's the lack of medicine in entire communities -- the lack of healthcare coverage that 47 million Americans face. Perhaps some people would like the mere chance to be cured of prostate cancer. The demagoguery in the above radio ad is not only highly misleading and factually incorrect; it's completely out of touch and disgusting.

So yes, Mr. Giuliani. Perhaps you should be thanking God that you weren't uninsured, out of luck, and left high and dry.