> http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/hogberg200505120809.asp
Thanks Michael! That was the single worst article I have ever read on understanding the number of uninsured. I do not read the National Review often but is it always so painfully and obviously bad?
The title indicates it is going to be an attack on Single-Payer but it is a weird attack on estimates of the uninsured. It manages to attack people and organizations that are not even single-payer supporters.
The article itself is an incredible comedy of statistical error and poor logic. He starts with the CPS national estimate of 45 million uninsured. It mentions that the Urban Inst. thinks that is about 4 million to high (not quite technically true but the Urban Institute has a TRIM model, designed to correct for a Medicaid undercount, as a CPS add-on that reduces the number of uninsured estimated by CPS to 41 million). It also mentions an CMS study that says it is 9 million too high (as details or knowledge of the subject at had are not the NRO authors strong point, I should point out that the study in question was prepared FOR CMS by outside consultants , Actuarial Research, but that is a small point). The main point here is that research by Actuarial Research is an attempt to correct for a perceived Medicaid undercount which is precisely what the UI TRIM model does. Hogberg actually subtracts BOTH of these numbers (attempts to estimate the same thing) from the number of truely insured.
And it gets worse. He confuses the issue completely with a discussion of uninsured non-citizens. Obviously, their uninsured status should count but even if you were to exclude them, any estimate of the uninsured citizen would need to be revised from the sample.
And still it gets worse. It then drops an estimated 9 million from the ranks of the uninsured because they could get Medicaid. Well, they don\'t have insurance that is the whole point and their both administrative and non-income requirements that prevent people from receiving Medicaid. He also removes anyone with an income over $50,000 from the ranks of the uninsured because he has apparently deemed them "capable of buying insurance". For someone who so glibly promotes the free market in health insurance, this shows a complete ignorance of how the private insurance market works. Insurance can be extremely difficult to purchase for many people who are either sick or deemed to be predisposed to future costs by the health insurance industry. Given crappy policies and high premiums, even people making $50,000 a year can just hope they won't get too sick and avoid insurance.
Jim
"How much you want to bet there's an ambulance rushin a short man, O.D. man, police abused black man to the hospital? Now what they rushin for is my intrest? Rushin through traffic jam to get to emergency room traffic jam, that's susppose to be a free clinic Only to hear if you have or don't have insurance It ain't nuttin but survivial of the fittest So what they rushin for?" --Tupac Shakur