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Temo: Everything Jules posted on this subject is all bunk. A load of crap.
“An estimated 17,000 children in the United States might have died unnecessarily over nearly two decades because they didn’t have health insurance,” said U.S. News and World Report. “The authors estimated that at least 1,000 hospitalized children died each year simply because they lacked insurance,” said The New York Times.
They’re talking about a Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study [gated, but with abstract]. But between the media hype and the actual study is an enormous chasm that separates fact from fiction. In truth, the authors of the study did not establish that anybody, anywhere, died of any cause whatsoever because of a lack of health insurance.
This is only the latest in a series of ridiculous claims that have been injected into the health insurance debate. What follows is a brief review, some of which has appeared earlier at the Health Affairs blog.
...................
Also, before you go into mourning too quickly, be aware that when former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) June O’Neill and her husband Dave used a similar approach they found that the involuntarily uninsured (low-income people) were only 3% more likely to die over a 14-year period than those with health insurance. There was no statistically significant effect on the “voluntarily uninsured” (higher-income people).
That’s not too surprising in light of a RAND study finding. People are receiving appropriate care a little better than half the time when they see doctors. According to RAND, the care patients receive is not affected by whether they are insured or uninsured or by the type of insurance they have. People who are uninsured, of course, may delay seeing a doctor in the first place — because of their lack of insurance. But this problem is unlikely to be solved by enrolling them in Medicaid programs that routinely ration by waiting.
That the famous study by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance has been a reliable Democrat talking point for months. But its estimate that 44,789 "excess deaths" are associated with lack of health insurance annually is rarely questioned by the media. They should be.
"The findings in this research are based on faulty methodology and the death risk is significantly overstated," National Center for Policy Analysis president John C. Goodman has explained. "The subjects were interviewed only once and the study tries to link their insurance status at that time to mortality a decade later. Yet over the period, the authors have no idea whether subjects were insured or uninsured, what kind of medical care they received, or even cause of death."
Researchers of the Harvard based their conclusion upon national surveys participants filled from 1986-1994. After checking how many of the adults died by the year 2000, researchers proceeded to make the unbelievable leap in assumption and faith that the uninsured stayed uninsured for all those years - and died as a result.
"The most recent available study, which also had the largest sample and controlled for the most variables, found no effect at all--a result which surprised the hell out of its author, a former Clinton advisor. Other studies say the number is in the tens of thousands. "
...
"The Atlantic Home Monday, April 9, 2012
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Megan McArdle
Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. She is currently on leave. More
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Share Share « Previous McArdle | Next McArdle » Email Email Print Print How Many People Die From Lack of Health Insurance? By Megan McArdle
Feb 11 2010, 3:20 PM ET 132
It's a contentious question, but curiously, one that doesn't get debated nearly as fiercely as things like "how many uninsured people are there?" I find that surprising, because after all, we don't necessarily care whether people are marked by some survey as "insured" or "uninsured"; we care whether there is preventable suffering in the world.
But it turns out to be really hard to determine how many people die without insurance, which is the subject of this month's column. The most recent available study, which also had the largest sample and controlled for the most variables, found no effect at all--a result which surprised the hell out of its author, a former Clinton advisor. Other studies say the number is in the tens of thousands.
The left is predictably fond of the study which got the largest number, 45,000 a year. Unfortunately, its authors are political advocates for a single-payer system, who also helped author the notorious studies on medical bankruptcies. Those studies are very shoddily done, with parameters that somehow always conspire to produce the maximum possible number. In the first study, they set an absurdly low threshhold for what constituted a "medical bankruptcy". In the second, they chose 2006, the year after the 2005 bankruptcy reform act had driven an unprecedented spike in filings."
Dr. Angell is former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Senate Finance Committee's hearings on health reform earlier this month did not include testimony from any advocate for single-payer insurance. Physicians for a National Health Program, which represents 16,000 doctors, asked the committee to invite me to testify, but it chose not to. If I had been invited, this is what I would have said:
The reason our health system is in such trouble is that it is set up to generate profits, not to provide care. We rely on hundreds of investor-owned insurance companies that profit by refusing coverage to high-risk patients and limiting services to others. They also cream off about 20 percent of the premiums for profits and overhead.
In addition, we provide much of our medical care in investor-owned health facilities that profit by providing too many services for the well-insured and too few for those who cannot pay. Most physicians are paid fee-for-service, which gives them a similar incentive, particularly specialists who receive very high fees for performing expensive tests and procedures. Nonprofits behave much like for-profits, because they must compete with them. In sum, healthcare is directed toward maximizing income, not maximizing health. In economic terms, it's a highly successful industry, but it's a massive drain on the rest of the economy.
The reform proposals advocated by President Obama are meant to increase coverage for the uninsured. That is certainly a worthwhile goal, but the problem is that they leave the present profit-driven and highly inflationary system essentially unchanged, and simply pour more money into it - an unsustainable situation.
....
A single-payer system is ignored by lawmakers because of the influence of the health industry lobbies. They raise the specter of rationing and long waits for care. There are indeed waits for some elective procedures in some countries with national health systems, such as the United Kingdom. But that's because they spend far less on healthcare than we do. For them, the problem is not the system; it's inadequate funding. For us, it's not the funding; it's the system. We spend more than enough.
I urge you to consider a nonprofit single-payer system. The economic interests of the health industry should not be permitted to hold the rest of the economy hostage and threaten the health and well-being of the public.
Artful Dodger: in Aussieland we call it "Come in Spinner"
***Same Difference?
The term 'come in spinner' refers not only to the game of two-up, marking the moment at which the coins are tossed. It also refers to the verbal art of the wind-up, marking the moment when the narrator of a shaggy dog story tells the hapless listener s/he's been conned. The stakes in this game are not just the small change of little truths (which you lose to the biggest liar), but the status of truths themselves. In order to arrive at that delicious moment when you can say 'come in spinner', you have to give away those little truths that will be recognized, picked up and followed; followed right up the garden path. In fact, in order to mislead, you must tell the truth. In order to produce difference, to put your listeners in a different place from where they think you are, you have to convince them they're in the same place.
This is also the politics of the cover up. The deceptiveness of appearance is not just a matter of overriding difference; of covering facts with fictions, or fictions with facts. The deceptiveness of appearance is also a uniquely Australian cultural norm. It deceptively appeared, for example, that Australia was constitutionally different from Britain until Remembrance Day 1975, when ocker met a Kerr, and difference was overridden. The AJCS is no exception to this cultural norm. It too has a politics of the cover-up. Like Gough Whitlam, it is dedicated to uncovering The Truth of the Matter} but like Australia it has made transgression and illegality the true symbols of a national culture.
"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes.
From time immemorial, however, the liberals have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a elite community, where as in reality they are bad thinking? And what an elite! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the liberals for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. He (McCarthy) called the liberal "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail."
(V): When you're losing an argument (which is often) you will stoop to anything to muddy the waters. Of course no one make that claim about the 99%. YOU made it up out of desperation.
(V): And you LOVE to change the subject when you've lost an argument (which is often - especially when you face-off against me). What else would ya like me to school ya on?
... Of course.. no-one here would say or imply that the OWS protesters were rapists, or feel that Andrew Breitbart is a hero for pointing out that the OWS protesters are rapists.
I mean isn't that changing the subject via a big lie?
Then to delete all such statements once pressed on the validity of such a big lie.
But hey such is the way of the politician.
.. or, as in the UK. The PPI industry. Billions to pay back to insurance plans deliberately mis-sold.
"some were rapists duh" .... some people that went along were rapists. Like some Christians and Conservatives are rapists but just use the label of being Conservatives and Christians as a pretence of being trustful.
Point being is about thinking.... Like you use to swear that you believed 100% that anyone who was not a Christian, and in particular one who believes in an ultimate literal 'Heaven' and 'Hell' as you did, were the only the Christians who were saved and going on to heaven.... all other Christians were damned, and all non Christians were damned.
You now seem to say you don't believe that any more, but you do now say anyone who diasgrees with your views on the economy, and all liberal points (as you call them) are 100% wrong?
Artful Dodger: Why? Because you can't remember being the "perfect christian"? Blasting everyone with your perceived new born christible God given wrath?
(V): You love to change the subject don't you. Plus you are making this all up. Besides, the point you were disputing was the FACT that rapes occured in the Occupy Wall Street camps. Not only did they happen, the perpatrators were Occupiers (as were the victims). And the leadership of the Occupy camps tried to cover up the crimes by "handling them internally." It got so bad with the Occupy group that they had to have a woman's only section (as well as a gay and lesbian sections) for the safety of others. There are several hundred examples of serious law violations including rapes. Only liberal thinkers like you would try to soft pedal the rapes.
Artful Dodger: Nope. I'd swear about this on a stack of Bibles. Many others who saw this would also be able to truthfully swear to such. I remember you thought all LDS were really, really hell bound. Or was that just you using religion?
"that rapes occured in the Occupy Wall Street camps."
Rapes happen in Texas. By your logic.. it is fair to say the rapists were Texans... Nothing about them being men, or unstable, drunk, on drugs, abused.
.. Just that they were Texans.
"And the leadership of the Occupy camps tried to cover up the crimes by "handling them internally.""
Some people after being attacked don't want the police involved. This is a fact.
"that they had to have a woman's only section (as well as a gay and lesbian sections) for the safety of others."
So they choose to protect the women, and the gay and lesbians from gay and lesbian haters... you are complaining about this?
"Only liberal thinkers like you would try to soft pedal the rapes."
I'm not. To say so is just petty fogging. You made a false statement based on one certain fraction of an equation, there were rapists and abusers and anti gay folk who 'blended' in and raped/attacked people at the OWS camps.
Just as their have been cases of rapes, sodomy, incest and abuse in Christian Churches by Christians... but that they were Christians is insignificant except to maybe explain how they may have gotten away with such activities. Especially as many within the Christian church covered up such matters and dealt with them internally..
.. some targeted groups even slept in separate areas to others as a matter of safety!!
(V): So I'm calling ya out. Let's get these "witnesses" so that you can feel better about yourself. lol Also, some proof would be nice. Or am I to take the word of one such as you?
It's clear from the evidence that there were rapes that occured in the occupy camps and that the leaders TRIED TO COVER THEM UP! Of course you don't like this inconvienent fact do you? It rather destroys your narrative. Looks like you're the one who made a false statement based on one certain fraction of an equation (not to mention your endless twisting of the facts!!!)
""And the leadership of the Occupy camps tried to cover up the crimes by "handling them internally.""
jules--->Some people after being attacked don't want the police involved. This is a fact."
Except Jules, this isn't what happened. The leaders of the OWS camp decided FOR THE RAPE VICTIM that it would be handled internally.
""that they had to have a woman's only section (as well as a gay and lesbian sections) for the safety of others."
--->So they choose to protect the women, and the gay and lesbians from gay and lesbian haters... you are complaining about this?"
The mere fact that they had to set up safe zones in the OWS camps proves the camps were a dangerous place as well as many of the protesters were dangerous people.
""Only liberal thinkers like you would try to soft pedal the rapes."
--->I'm not. To say so is just petty fogging. You made a false statement based on one certain fraction of an equation, there were rapists and abusers and anti gay folk who 'blended' in and raped/attacked people at the OWS camps."
No, you're making light of all of it. But anyone reading back on your comments re the Tea Party will see you went out of your way to connect dots between the Tea Party and scandalous people. Like the liberal media, you pushed the racist element of the Tea Party (even when none existed). With the rapes, you make excuses, with the Tea Party you only made accusations. The rapes happened. The racist element is a myth.
--->Just as their have been cases of rapes, sodomy, incest and abuse in Christian Churches by Christians... but that they were Christians is insignificant except to maybe explain how they may have gotten away with such activities. Especially as many within the Christian church covered up such matters and dealt with them internally..
One victim and now it's all of them, or for all of them and you are just talking about one?
"The mere fact that they had to set up safe zones in the OWS camps proves the camps were a dangerous place as well as many of the protesters were dangerous people."
So no-one outside the protest was dangerous? Muggings, murders and all outside the camp just stopped.
"No, you're making light of all of it."
No, being real.
"the racist element of the Tea Party (even when none existed)."
Again, I was being real... boo hoo.
"The racist element is a myth."
Like God?
"But in the case of OWS, it happend and was covered up."
Hardly a cover up or good attempt at one. But hey... you can think what you want... Do you think the average of 60% of rapes/sexual assaults not being reported each year is going to significantly change, or that the figure of 74% of rapes being committed by a person the victim knows??
Wow... a BNP supporters upload focussing on rape by black people. Forgetting to include some matters of how they learnt disrespect from women. Such as evangelical christibles saying women are second class, or other influences.
Golly... Do you want me to find one about the 95%+ of rapes in the USA are by white males that I heard?
(V): You ignore facts and make excuses. Same old same old. It's clear from what I've posted that as a group, the OWS crowd has MANY bad elements. OTOH, the Tea Party does not. And you'd be hard pressed to prove otherwise. Any group would have a few bad apples. OWS has not just a few, but thousands. They are anarchists. They use violence and intimidation as a means to an end.
Temo: Re: Any group would have a few bad apples. OWS has not just a few, but thousands. They are anarchists.
Artful Dodger: Anarchists... oh nooooo. People not conforming, expressing their freedom of speech!! Like when the Tea party and other groups such as the KKK and neo nazis go on marches.
But don't worry.... if "They use violence and intimidation" I'm sure those rednecks with mountains of guns and ammo can intervene.
I'm being sarcastic btw.
"bad elements. OTOH, the Tea Party does not" .... "Any group would have a few bad apples."
Temo: Re: Any group would have a few bad apples. OWS has not just a few, but thousands. They are anarchists.
rod03801: It's interesting how the left focuses on the Tea Party racism when none exists but overlooks the hundreds of crimes committed by OWS loons. Then the Prez has the stupidity to suggest that the OWS group is the same as the TParty. Only in politics.
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