Families USA’s Flawed Health Insurance Numbers
Monday, May 5th, 2008 By Marc KilmerIt’s a line you see regularly in news stories – two people in Ohio die every day because they lack health insurance. It’s based on a “study” by left-wing Families USA that has some severe flaws, as John Goodman points out:
How is Families USA able to tally up all this carnage with such pinpoint precision? As it turns out, these claims are based on a 15-year cascade of studies – each repeating the errors and misinterpreting or mischaracterizing the findings of the previous one and ultimately relying on data that is 37 years old…
there is no point at which anyone from Families USA actually examines a medical record. There is no interview with any doctor, any patient or any family of a deceased patient. There is only algebraic mumbo jumbo in support of an unsupportable claim.
Read the whole analysis here.
Tags: Health care
May 5th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
The methodology of the “report” by Families USA was so poor and statistically flawed that they only released their summaries (i.e. press releases), but will not release the methodology. (It is not available on their website; and I have e-mailed them for it, but have received no response.)
Families USA is famous (or infamous) for their reports of poorly done and biased “studies” that end up as exaggerated press releases meant for suckers (i.e. Media and other non-critical thinkers – most of America) whose findings are discarded when they are reviewed after the fact. I have no reason to believe that this “study” is any different.
Remember this?
According to Families USA, 14.3 million U.S. residents spend more than 25% of their incomes on health care; this number grew by one-quarter between 2000 and 2004.
When analyzed, became this:
In 2004, it is estimated that about 4.9% of people in the U.S. were part of a family whose total health care utilization (by those under age 65) cost someone an amount equal to at least 25% of that family’s annual earnings; this number may have grown by 15% since 2000 from 4.1%.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Joe, you are exactly right. Unfortunately those who work for the news media don’t share your common sense. Whenever Families USA puts out one of its wildly misleading “studies” there are a lot of news reports that repeat their claims word-for-word. It’s too bad that newspaper reporters don’t actually analyze the outlandish claims that are made by Families USA.