February 5, 2009 4:37PM 

# Does Karen Davenport Owe Me $40? 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

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At the [National Medical Association](http://www.nmanet.org/)’s 2008 [Mazique Symposium](http://nmanet.org/index.php?/video/index/edward_c_mazique_symposium_2008) in Atlanta, I made a bet with Karen Davenport. Davenport is a lovely woman, the [director of health policy at the Center for American Progress](http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/DavenportKaren.html), a prominent member of the [Church of Universal Coverage](https://www.cato.org/?s=church+of+universal+coverage), and a really good sport.

I bet Davenport $20 that I could convince her that the following two claims are true:

![Media Name: 200902_blog_cannon.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/172395922072/200902_blog_cannon.jpg?itok=wKwKx3_C) 

We agreed on three rules. First, there would be no splitting the difference or agreeing to disagree — I would either succeed or I would fail. Second, Davenport would be the ultimate arbiter of whether I succeeded or failed. Third, if I failed, Davenport would have to explain why she was not convinced.

After my presentation and a subsequent exchange (mostly about the second claim), Davenport was unconvinced and she took the $40. She made two arguments for why I failed:

1. A crucial part of my argument — the claim by Helen Levy and David Meltzer that there is “[no evidence](http://www.urban.org/books/uninsured/contents.cfm)” that expanding health insurance is a cost-effective way of improving health — is not necessarily true and is, in fact, controversial among health economists, and
2. The lives that would be lost by adopting universal coverage (rather than a more cost-effective strategy for improving health), would be less than the lives lost during the time it would take to conduct experiments to determine which strategy is most cost-effective.

So I ask you, dear readers, to put on your thinking caps, watch the first 15 minutes of the following video, and tell me: were my arguments logically flawed, or does Karen Davenport owe me $40?

![Media Name: 200902_blog_cannon2.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/download-remote-images/www.cato.org/172395922072/200902_blog_cannon2.jpg?itok=mpIXJ4r6) 

I should add that Davenport tried to give me back my $20 ante. Naturally, I refused to accept my $20 unless it was also accompanied by her $20.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

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