After Jimmy Kimmel’s impassioned critique of the Graham-Cassidy repeal bill and the canonization of the Jimmy Kimmel Test for evaluating health policy,  celebrities are becoming increasingly active in the nation’s policy debates. I really wish they would stop, because they don’t know what they’re talking about, especially when it comes to healthcare, and the attention that they receive with their celebrity status makes it incredibly irresponsible for them to misinform the public. The newest entrant into the policy arena is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, famous for her roles on Seinfeld and Veep, who announced on Twitter that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer (get well, Julia).

The problem is that she then took the opportunity to plug universal health care as the solution to cancer mortality. Why is this a problem? Let’s take a quick look at how poorly the US compares to other OECD countries in breast cancer survival rates:

Oh. Well. That’s awkward. Despite not having universal health coverage, the United States is the best healthcare system for actually treating women with breast cancer and keeping them alive. That’s because contrary to popular belief, we do actually receive higher quality care than other countries. It’s important to point out that the US is a lot better than some key countries. The Commonwealth Fund’s darling “Best Healthcare System” in the United Kingdom is almost 9% behind the US in 5 year breast cancer survival rates. This is actually a massive problem, because as Julia Louis-Dreyfus correctly points out, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. That’s a full 1% of all British women who die because the NHS is failing them on this single important disease. Julia Louis-Dreyfus should study the facts before pushing such a system on American women as well.

By the way, since we’re sharing personal stories, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and as an uninsured poor immigrant went through chemo paying for treatment with loans. She lived. It’s certainly tough financially, but it’s not impossible, and the idea that being sick while uninsured is an automatic death sentence is yet another irresponsible falsehood.