Fans of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” books will remember that the answer to “life, the universe, and everything” was “42.” For American liberals, the answer to “health, insurance, and everything” appears to be 47. Liberal pundits and politicians, right up to President Obama, have famously – and wrongly – claimed that there are 47 million uninsured Americans. Now, an ObamaCare partisan has claimed that 47,000 Americans die annually because they lack health insurance. On Oct. 5, former Clinton White House staffer David Goodfriend appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” to argue for taxing healthcare businesses to pay for health care reform. Goodfriend stated that, even though medical device manufacturers and others would pay up front, they’d see returns in the form of more customers when those now uninsured enter the system.
“Just think; ask yourself this question,” Goodfriend said. “Why would 47,000 people a year be dying from lack of health insurance? How many more procedures would they get – how many more devices would they buy, if they had the insurance?”
Goodfriend didn’t cite the source of that figure, but The American Spectator shed some light on the possible source. In the Sept. 2008 American Spectator, David Hogberg explained the origin of claims that 18,000 people die each year because they are uninsured and why some could improperly extrapolate even larger figures (up to 47,000 people).
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“That statistic of deaths due to lack of health insurance has been frequently cited in health care debates since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported it in 2002,” wrote Hogberg. He cited the “wide degree of uncertainty surrounding the statistic.” The IOM study had been based on an earlier Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study that found that “lacking health insurance increased the risk of mortality by 25 percent.”
Hogberg then detailed the dubious problem:
In short, the IOM used the statistic from the JAMA study to calculate how many people would have died if everyone in the U.S. was insured. It then subtracted that number from the number of people who did die to determine the number of people who died due to lack of insurance.
The problem lies in the statistic in the original JAMA study. Specifically, the data in that study could not rule out the possibility that lacking insurance has no effect on mortality. Nor could it rule out that the effect might be larger, up to 55%. Thus, it is possible that the number of deaths annually due to uninsurance could be as low as zero or as high as 47,000.
So Goodfriend could have said that nobody dies each year from being uninsured and been just as accurate as claiming the number at 47,000. But that wouldn’t help sell a big government health plan.
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turn it around
October 6, 2009 - 07:58 ET by jon_torlinSo here's a question to ask in rebuttal:
How many people die annually WITH insurance?
-Jon
About 2.5 million people
October 6, 2009 - 08:13 ET by Dan The Man 2About 2.5 million people die each year in the USA. We have to do something to stop this, it is inhumane to let these people die. I say we have a death tax, tax those making over a dollar per lifetime 10% so we can prevent these deaths from happening. Call me at BR-549 to get more information.
Know how to keep a Troll in suspense? Ill tell ya in the morning.
Hey...
October 6, 2009 - 18:09 ET by stratmanHow'd you get my number?
Junior Samples was great.
Here is a dead pan delivered killer Junior joke!! HeeHaw got it back then.
Couple other goodies from back then:
TheyUh got their eyes Open
October 6, 2009 - 18:24 ET by BlondeNaaaaooow.
Hee hee.
I hope he fails, too.
Yep... that would mean that
October 6, 2009 - 08:28 ET by MazziYep... that would mean that roughly 1.5% of dead Americans were uninsured.
Now, the other figures that the SRM likes to tout is that 15.8% of (live) Americans are uninsured.
That would tell anyone with a basic understanding of statistical math that being UNINSURED greatly reduces your chances of dying. I think I better cancel my policy.
"I would rather be historically accurate than politically correct" ~ My husband's T-Shirt
Death
October 6, 2009 - 09:00 ET by In ExcessI read a study, researched by the local community college, that concluded 100% of people without insurance will die. Buried in the same report, it was discovered that 100% of people with insurance will also die!
Let me clue the average
October 6, 2009 - 08:07 ET by BDLet me clue the average liberal in: YOu never get as much back from the government as you pay in taxes.
So when David Goodfriend appears on TV and encourages medical appliance manufactures to kowtow to higher tax rates "Because they will get the money back from increased customers" he is selling woof tickets.
If past patterns are followed:
Just the observations of a governmental functionary at the start of the fiscal year.
Well, at least we're having
October 6, 2009 - 08:19 ET by BKeyserWell, at least we're having an honest debate. /sarc
What Goodfriend isn't
October 6, 2009 - 08:29 ET by celatorWhat Goodfriend isn't telling us is that these 47,000 are all from the same town, a little place in Vermont called Radon Center. Insurance peddlers have been outlawed there since the Mumps Panic of 1872. Now they are paying the price.
No citizen's right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, or property is safe as long as Obama is President of the United States.
It's probably better if we
October 6, 2009 - 08:32 ET by ConservativeRexIt's probably better if we all stay away from hospitals, with or without insurance, too many folks die in them.
If you just go by these rigged statistics.
Si Vis Palem, Para Bellum
This is also about the
October 6, 2009 - 08:33 ET by dscottThis is also about the billions of wasted of dollars for flawed studies that could have been used to actually cure diseases. The recent Harvard Study claiming 45,000 a year die from lack of health insurance was an exercise in Correlation Fallacy. It demonstrates a deeper problem of politics corrupting science where the agenda (conclusion) determines the assumptions by the use of circular reasoning.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
S--- Happens
October 6, 2009 - 08:39 ET by ROSSMANIf you go to the Key West emergency room, no money, no insurance will keep you alive! Just Good Luck and the power of prayer wil give you a 40 to 50% chance!! I know, cause I been there!!!
Beware of the IOM!
October 6, 2009 - 08:40 ET by jondelwicheClosed govt' advisory group, from the 1970's, who gets new members only by nominations from existing members.
I do believe McGuire, of options scandal "fame," still is an IOM member, and clearly no greater disservice was done to America when bigtime Kerry/Edwards donor Dr Leape published his truly laughable "Err" study that claimed 98,000 deaths every year in hospital errors.
This study was widely discredited in 2001 by followup JAMA studies but it was and still IS cited by the liberal media and trial lawyer advocates as something truthful when, like this dopey insurance claim, it is total statistical fantasy.
Unfortunately, fraud in
October 6, 2009 - 08:52 ET by dscottUnfortunately, fraud in medical studies is a big problem and very common. http://www.anhcampai...
The bottom line on medical studies is if it doesn't pass the sniff test, then don't pay attention to it. You might just as well take some unknown person's word for it because you have an equal chance of them being correct compared to a medical study.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
Beware of Liberals Quoting Statistics
October 6, 2009 - 08:51 ET by richb313Does anyone here remember how during the Reagan Administration the Liberals would always say how the homeless situation was getting so bad? There was this spokesman, I cannot remember his name, who would quote some numbers or some such nonsense whenever he was interviewed. He was never challenged on his numbers. I remember running the numbers myself, that the spokesman had provided, and found that in two years 20% of all Americans would be homeless. I knew on a gut level that his numbers were false, but by simply running the numbers I proved they were also crazy as well. This new number falls into the crazy side as well. How would they have gathered the relevant data since according to his numbers they did not recieve medical attention or were denied certain procedures?
It all boils down to this, we don't know what we can't know. We can't know things that we can't observe in some way. By the way the most dangerous place to be if you are over 50 years of age is a Hospital. Remember just checking into a Hospital is taking your life and putting it in the hands of others. More people die in Hospitals due to reasons unrealated to the reason that they went in the first place than most people are aware of. I would put the figure up near 10% of all deaths in Hospitals are a direct result of being in the Hospital in the first place.
I was thinking the SAME
October 6, 2009 - 11:39 ET by TenebrousI was thinking the SAME thing!
If this were an honest debate, then everyone would share their methodology and we could see what was really going on. Instead, it's obfuscation and table-pounding.
If this is really such a problem, then there's no need to blow it up into Holocaust-type proportions. The truth will be evident to all.
Instead, the debate is waged by secret stats which aren't reproducible, shouting, and fantasy (having government-run healthcare will be cheaper!).
It's not about the healthcare at all. It's about one thing: CONTROL.
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Random-jumbled-thoughts.blogspot.com
Who are the two biggest
October 6, 2009 - 08:59 ET by dscottWho are the two biggest liars? Politicians and Statistics. When a politician cites a statistic you know 100% for sure you are being lied to unless you agree with what they said, in which case you're either naive or on board with the agenda.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
Shoulda said this earlier
October 6, 2009 - 09:12 ET by jon_torlinGuess I'm feeling kinda cranky this morning, allergies will do that to ya, but I got one other thing to say about this:
47,000 people annually dying from lack of insurance.
That's really got to be one of the stupidest things to say on live TV. It's one thing to tell a lie or pass something off as "truth" but then there's just plain STUPID(STOOPID!) like this.
Where do they find these people??
-Jon
~Public school
October 6, 2009 - 09:13 ET by choselife3xKossacks hate me. And yes, it does feel good.
Junk Data and Bad Science
October 6, 2009 - 09:46 ET by slickwillie2001This is all horsecrap. I believe he simply misquoted bad data. The proper bad data number for 'deaths due to lack of insurance' is 45,000, not 47,000. The '45,000' study was done by a group that is pushing for single payer, surprise.
The 47,000 number is the sloppy estimate that being thrown around for the total lack of uninsured.
The 18,000 bad data number is an earlier estimate of the number of deaths due to a lack of insurance, from a 2002 'study' by the Institute of Medicine.
Here's background on the 45,000 and the 18,000 number: 45,000 American Deaths Associated [Note Weasel Word] With Lack of Insurance: http://www.cnn.com
Here's an article that describes the insanely incompetent methodology of the '45,000' study: Junk Science Expert Sounds Alarm on Insurance Study: http://washingtontimes.com
From that article: "They interviewed 9,000 people between 1988 and 1994 and asked, 'Do you have health insurance?' and if you die at some point in the future, they assume your death was caused by the fact you didn’t have insurance during that time you were interviewed."
Using such sloppy methodology, I could interview people, and if they have health insurance, and they die between the interview and the conclusion of the study, I could say that those people died because they had health insurance. This isn't statistics or science, it's 'pull something out of your butt' propaganda.
Well it is now confirmed
October 6, 2009 - 10:41 ET by Patriot IIAdolfo bama is not the only one with complete unadulterated morons around him!
They abort a 1,000,000 or
October 6, 2009 - 10:31 ET by ChandlerThey abort a 1,000,000 or so babies every year and it doesn't bother them.
Now they are worried about a comparatively few uninsured?
Bullseye
October 6, 2009 - 11:32 ET by wolfemanicThat is so true. What fool is going to let these liberal freaks of nature preach to them about compassion.
Fetuses do not vote.
October 6, 2009 - 12:08 ET by NL207Fetuses do not vote.
Perspective
October 6, 2009 - 10:39 ET by jaywlWell, you see, it is how you say these things. This statistic has been misused. What should have been reported is that 47,000 lives will have been either saved or created if we have Obamacare. The saving part is pretty much self-evident and the creation is explained by lovers more inclined to, ah, create if Obama will pay the delivery costs.
He has been using this formulation for months now and no amount of flabbergasting, stomping of the feet, stuttering, or exasperation when it is said has deterred the Media from treating such BS as gospel, so they might using it more. Egad!
Bad data (even fraudulent
October 6, 2009 - 10:56 ET by MazziBad data (even fraudulent data) is an old liberal trick. Consider the words of Dr. Bernard Nathanson - who was one of the big Pro-abortion activists (and co-founder of NARAL) in the 1970's:
"We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000."
"Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.""Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law."
Like its a game?
October 6, 2009 - 17:37 ET by general companyThis makes me sick to my belly. Like the life of others is somehow not worthy of their consideration. Liberals lie, to them the end justifies the means, NEVER FORGET THAT!!
My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
A statistic that is just as accurate...
October 6, 2009 - 11:03 ET by c5thenMedicare's denial of claims kills 50,000 a year!
Actually the numbers are so close that you could easily say that they are one in the same.
Throw 'da bums out!!!
no incumbent re-elected, with very few exceptions!
www.loyaltoliberty.com
Is he sure 47,000 people
October 6, 2009 - 11:51 ET by Six String SpiffIs he sure 47,000 people actually die every year alone? Nevermind his 'statistic'? Seriously, for people who come up with these stats, they have zero information to back them up.
"Experts say.."
I wonder how many people die
October 6, 2009 - 12:31 ET by ScadsobeesI wonder how many people die in Australia, France, Britain, and Canada exactly BECAUSE everybody has insurance...the same crappy managed healthcare that everybody else does.
Deaths in America
October 6, 2009 - 14:35 ET by GigglingGooglerNEWS FLASH: LIFE KILLS!!!!!
The Results Of My Study
October 6, 2009 - 15:55 ET by slickwillie2001I went looking for how many Americans die in a year, and found the figure of 2.4 million. If 47/300 of America is uninsured, that means that the uninsured deaths should be 376,000, assuming equal distribution. That means the number of people with insurance that die is around two million.
But the liberals say that 45 or 47,000 die 'from lack of insurance', ie they are uninsured.
Looks to me like the way to have a better shot at getting through the year is to be uninsured.
More people with insurance die than people without insurance!