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"Can they be," I wonder, "this wrong? Or, do they expect readers not to have the sense God gave a goose and see past this?" (Yes, somethings I wonder with Chandler Bing inflection.)
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In this case the entire problem is helpfully captured in the secondary headline of their editorial, ie; People in the United States pay more and get less that citizens in other advanced countries..
Which is both true and meaningless - at least on an individual level.
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Aggregating spending and results on a national level doesn't really make all the much sense in a nation where health is paid for by the individual (either privately or through insurance).
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So, those people that can afford good health care get amazing health care.
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Those people that can't afford health care, don't get any or get very very expensive emergency room health care when it is too late for it to be helpful.
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Take pre-natal care. Many people with no insurance or people with lousy insurance don't get prenatal care. (Low cost). But when they have the baby, if there is a problem that cheap pre-natal care might have caught or avoided altogether - we will do everything possible to save the child. Six months in neo-natal isolation at the cost of millions?! Okay. Require insurance to cover pre-birth check-ups? Socialism.
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Where Republicans are correct on our national health care problem, they are very right. A TON (way too much) of our "health care spending" isn't on "health care" at all. It is spent in the health care areana only to avoid law suits. We have a zillion Caesarian births to avoid lawsuits on the off chance one was necessary. We will keep terminally ill people alive at a massive cost, much longer than we should (or they want), because to NOT do that would invite lawsuits.
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Our health care has a lot of problems. reducing them to this black and white - We Spend To much and Get Too Little argument is not helpful. Not because it is wrong, per say, but because people don't see that at an individual level. And health care is very very individual.