Where does it hurt?

• “…US spends twice as much on health care than any other country”

OK, so yeah, maybe Bernie was wrong. But CNN’s headline writer made a boo-boo too. Another case of misusing “than.”

It’s twice as much as … or twice more than. (Actually, twice more than might not mean the same thing mathematically. I’ll leave that up to the GAO to figure out.)

Think of as  and than  as a Republican and a Democrat. They don’t work together. At least not in the same comparative statement.

If things change in Congress and this analogy becomes obsolete, I’ll revise this post.

And eat my hat.

(And need medical attention. Really, really expensive medical attention.)