Cooking the ObamaCare Stats?
Out of the blue, the Census Bureau has changed how it counts health insurance — at the precise moment when ObamaCare is roiling the insurance markets.
Since 1987, the Current Population Survey, or CPS, has collected information on the health-insurance coverage status of Americans. The annual reports are widely cited because their large sample sizes improve accuracy, the data are gathered constantly, and they tease out state-by-state details. But this year the Census revamped the CPS household insurance questions, muddying comparisons between the pre- and post-ObamaCare numbers. The results of the new method will be disclosed this fall. (WSJ)
“Out of the blue, the Census Bureau has changed how it counts health insurance…”
This definitely indicates that something fishy is going on. They are trying to mask or fudge the real number of the insured to prove that ObamaCare is successful.
I doubt this is the only time they have been cooking the numbers for ObamaCare. Don’t forget about the whole enrollment period where they state, “3 million people now have insurance thanks to ACA.”
It’s all smoke in mirrors.
“Muddying a useful source of information about ObamaCare’s results is definitely unfortunate, but our guess is that it wasn’t coincidental.”
Exactly
This is certainly a headline I wish I hadn’t seen…
The previous way they’ve collected information about health insurance has been the same way since 1987, I don’t understand why change it now.. Oh yeah, the government has its own interests in them now.
At this point, can you really say that your surprised? I expect anything from the government at this point. But they cannot mask their problems forever.
They are certainly going to try though.
It’s long been known that the current population survey is not a very accurate picture of the uninsured. For one thing, the CPS is really a snapshot in time rather than an accurate count of the uninsured for an entire year. However, there is much to be said for consistency. Since scholars all know about the CPS’ weaknesses, there was really little reason to change it.
The article reports that “the old version overreports the number of uninsured” and they change it in order to provide an accurate measure. It is interesting to note that there was no overreporting when they were debating to pass the law that will help the “vast amount of uninsured currently living in America”. The old version overreports and the new one is “accurately” shows the number of uninsured. If this is the case, why is the White House claiming that the reform was a success?
This is the beauty of numbers. They can be interpreted several different ways and can be calculated a certain way that will guarantee a number that supports the claim one wants to make. Common people rely solely on the number but never understand the issues with how they are calculated. For example unemployment, the administration is content with the last figures reported, as the people are. But they ignore that the decrease in unemployment is being caused, in part, by people leaving the workforce. Statistics are beautiful, because it gives you a number that helps you support whatever you want to prove.
Dr. McTeer had a really good post in the NCPA’s Economic Blog about the deceptiveness of the economic statistics that we consider when thinking about policy (http://economyblog.ncpathinktank.org/lies-damed-lies-and-gdp/). If the statistics are biased for these important numbers, just imagine how biased they will be for the other less relevant statistics.