Health insurance lies, damned lies, and misleading statistics

The Left is in a lather about the number 45.  Forty-five million uninsured Americans.  Forty-five thousand die each year without health care.  They wouldn't die if those evil Republicans, Rovian conservatives, and redneck, in-bred, racist, white Teabaggers (cue the obligatory junior high school snickers) would just stand aside and let us screw up one-sixth of our economy that currently satisfies the needs of over 85% of our citizens by catering to the 15%.  

Why is it that liberals always manage to the exception?  The state of Minnesota just sunk millions of dollars into changing the names of the Lindbergh and Humphrey terminals at MSP airport into "Terminal 1" and "Terminal 2" because an annual average of 20,000 travelers are confused by the names.  That seems significant until one factors in that about 6 million people file through the airport yearly.  That's a third of a percent!

Sorry, off-topic rant.  Anyway, the 45 million uninsured number.  The American Spectator breaks it down (note:  They used the 46 million total):

• 9.7 million are not U.S. citizens.
• 14 million are estimated to be eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP but are not currently enrolled. 
• In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000.
• According to the last census, 18.3 million were under 34.
• When Blue Cross Blue Shield conducted a study in 2003, they found about 8.3 million people who were too poor to purchase insurance and too rich to qualify for health insurance.

Now, the 45,000 annual deaths linked to lack of health insurance.  This data was obtained through a very faulty data retrieval mechanism. 

First, they selected 33,994 individuals whom had participated in the previous NHANES III study from 1986 -1994.  They excluded people 65 years and older, so the sample was 14,798 people between the ages of 17 and 64.  Then they excluded Medicaid and VA beneficiaries.  Sample size now 12775.  Six hundred sixty-three lacked information on the health insurance, and 974 had private insurance or failed to complete a physical examination or the interview process for the study.  OK, sample size now 11,138.  Including only "complete baseline data" from both interview and physical analysis, they ended up with 9,004 study subjects, or three-millionths of the population.

Then what did they do?  They followed up with the subjects in 2000 and found 351 had died.  That was the extent of follow-up.  The study admits that "We were unable to measure the effect of gaining or losing coverage after the interview.  Point-in-time uninsurance is associated with subsequent uninsurance."  In other words, they ASSUMED that, hypothetically, if a subject didn't have insurance at the time of their interview, went to a job with full benefits the next day, and had the job and health insurance till the day he or she was hit by a bus the day before the follow-up, he or she would be counted among the uninsured!  The study's author offers this to detract from the gaping hole in the study's methodology:  "Intermittent insurance coverage is common and accelerates the decline among middle-aged persons."  I looked up the footnote and read the abstract from the Journal of the American Medical Association.  Funny the conclusion that study drew wasn't quite the same drawn by the self-serving 2009 Harvard study.  The JAMA abstract concluded that previously intermittently or persistently uninsured people, particularly those with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, upon obtaining access to Medicare, trended toward an improvement in self-reported health.

The Harvard study concludes with a "fact" that doesn't seem to be derived from the data of the study, but from a chart derived from undated CDC and Census data, showing insurance rates, by state, deaths in that state, and the "excess deaths" for each state.  According to the CDC, an excess death is defined as "the difference between the number of deaths observed in a racial/ethnic group and the number of deaths that would have occurred in that group if it had the same death rate as the non-Hispanic white population."

In one stroke, CDC data, itself very subjective, is interpreted to represent deaths due to lack of health insurance.  What??? 

The news media is simply not doing its job when "journalists" pass along these "facts" without a skeptical eye and the willingness to just do a little digging.  Just a little.  It took me an hour to put this information together.

NPR elevates the discourse

A video dated 12 November 2009 purports to show readers to "speak Teabagger."

Nice.  Real tolerant of these lefties of a contrary opinion.

Predictably, as right-leaning websites link to the video, numerous conservatives leave comments on the story, registering their disapproval and disgust at such a blatant smear on the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Partiers.  Equally predictably, defenders of NPR's partially-public-funded  free speech came out.  One claimed the TEA partiers protesting the $787 billion stimulus bill as opposing a bill that consisted mostly of tax cuts.

Well, not quite.  According to the breakdown of the stimulus bill, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, tax cuts will account for about $301 billion of the $790 billion in funds "allocated" in the stimulus bill, costing about $288 billion compared with the total cost of $787 billion.  Neither the allocation nor cost of the tax cuts comes close to most of the total.  More like the range of 36-38%.

What do the individual tax cuts provided for in the stimulus bill consist of?

• $116 billion for the $400 payroll credit for individuals earning up to $77k income, or $800 for couples earning $150k and filing jointly.  This is the extra $13 a week that people have been raving about.
  
• $70 billion for AMT exemptions for individuals and married couples.
• $15 billion for the refundable child tax credit for incomes over $3000 qualifying.
• $14 billion in one-time payments of $250 to retirees, SSI beneficiaries, disabled citizens, and disabled veterans.  One-time payments that will be unlikely to have an economic benefit.  I thought this was supposed to be a stimulus.
• $14 billion in tax credits for college tuition, for up to $2500 per individual.  OK, I can see the net benefit of a more highly-skilled workforce.  Of course, it wouldn't be necessary to extend this tax credit if tuition rates weren't so astronomical, but that is a topic for another discussion.
• $6.6 billion in tax credits for first-time home-buyers, ranging from $7500-$8000.  Never has to be repaid.  Gee, didn't we determine that irresponsible lending and borrowing led us to the sub-prime mortgage crisis?  Why don't we encourage more people to buy a house now instead of saving up?  How about a tax credit to homeowners who make timely mortgage payments, even under economic hardship, such as unemployment, like me?  Banks like responsible homeowners a lot more than foreclosure proceedings.  Why not encourage responsibility?  Wait, I think I fell and hit my head.  I forgot for a moment that the Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House.  Responsibility is so passe.
• $4.7 billion to ensure $2400 in unemployment benefits are not subject to federal tax.  By what twisted logic is unemployment taxed anyway?  Ahh, you lost your job?  Here, we'll give you a fraction of the money you've paid into the system for years, but we're going to tax you on it.  Sounds fair, doesn't it?

By contrast, what does the rest of the stimulus bill consist of?

They're gonna save us from ourselves...

That seems to be a steady theme that dictates the actions of those who would perpetuate the Nanny State.  The latest example is a bunch of Swedes telling us poor dumb Americans how we can learn to bike everywhere and give up highway driving.  They're showing 4 "climate pilot" families in the D.C. metro area how we can accomplish this.

Consider this:  Sweden is a good-sized country, approximately 174,000 square miles, compared to our 3.8 million square miles.  They have a population density of 54 people per square mile, compared with our density of 83 people per square mile.

A year of changes

As this year draws to a close, I look back on the events of the year, both in my life, and in the world as a whole.  In January, the first black U.S. President was sworn in.  Too bad he's a ego-centric moron with zero leadership experience.  January also saw the merging of MCRS and Rabbit Agility, and the obstacle-building "parties."


In February, I lost Cosmo.  He was only 2.5 years old.  He was my buddy.  He wasn't a cuddler.  He didn't seek affection.  He was a fighter.  He was solitary.  He was one of a kind.  He was afraid of thunderstorms, but fearless in a fur-flying fight with other bunnies twice to thrice his size.  He loved to burrow, be in snow, or just in the hay in his cage.  He changed from a bunny whom we weren't sure would pass white-band, to a Purple-Band bunny who loved sailing over an arch jump he once dreaded.  One of two rabbits to never, not even once, step in the water when performing the water jump.

But February wasn't all darkness:  It saw the beginning of something my girlfriend and I did not think possible:  Morgan and Bailey worked through the grief over losing their cage neighbor by beginning to bond.  I admit it helped me work through my grief as well.  Today, they're inseparable.

But knowing that Tawny would take the bonded pair with her, if and when she bought her own house, motivated me to find a bunny to try to fill the hole in my heart left by Cosmo's death.  In late March, I took a trip over to Wisconsin and found not one, but two baby Flemish Giants.  Tawny and I named them Goose and Dori.  At two months of age, they were already around five pounds.  About a month later, the "babies" outweighed Morgan, and within the next month, they outweighed Bailey, once considered by the two of us to be a big bunny.  They'll never replace Cosmo, as that's impossible.  But each of them reminds me of my little buddy in their own way.

April and May don't stand out significantly to me, other than when I remember having to tolerate some petty power struggles in Rabbit Agility while working long hours at my job.

Little did I know that the long hours and loyalty to the company would not be rewarded.  As June came to a close, all of the contractors were let go, and most of us direct employees were put on paid administrative leave.  While the two months' paid vacation was nice, I, in a rare display of youthful arrogance, squandered time that could have been spent searching for a new job.  I thought that my position would allow me to retain employment longer than some.  I was wrong. What occurred wasn't a layoff, but a massacre of a competent workforce.

So while my July was restive and afforded me the opportunity of getting a couple of projects completed around my house, as well as taking time to visit my grandmother out east, I paid for that choice later on.  Truthfully, with the benefit of hindsight, I might have still done things the same way.

Naturally, the layoff was the most significant event in August.  It's discouraging to see the talent scattered the winds like that, and then to hear my president go on television and lie about it, saying the Pentagon doesn't want these antiquated and expensive weapon programs.  Ahem, Mr. President, be a stand-up guy for a change and say that you don't want these weapons programs, since the Pentagon will want whatever you want.  They're merely in charge of putting your policy into action.  Putz.

September, October, November:  They've blurred together:  Some promising leads and chances that simply fell apart.  Tawny got her own apartment, Fernando got married, I was actively pursued by recruiters.

December was a good cap to a year of changes and challenges.  And what I hoped for, a position in the Cities, was all but realized.  Fortunes have a way of reversing, however.  The four open positions with that company became two, and they moved from the Cities to Maryland.  But I wasn't even back home from my interview in Des Moines when they called and asked when I could start!

But December wasn't all roses.  A mascot for Rabbit Agility, Goldy, succumbed to stomach cancer, joining Cosmo, Chester, Leland, Frida, and other special buns on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.  Thanks to Dell Robbins, Rabbit Agility is probably a big hit in Heaven.

The system did not work

Janet Napolitano, call your office.

It is absurd to maintain that the system worked, unless the system is supposed to employ a plane's passengers as the last line of defense.

But maybe our bumbling DHS chief doesn't deserve all the scrutiny.  Maybe Schipol airport in Amsterdam, or the airport in Nigeria are deserving of a little bright light as well.  What happened?  The facts of  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's travels are still not clear.  Some questions I want cleared up:  Was Abdulmutallab re-screened by security at Schipol?  Was it merely a layover on the way from Nigeria to Detroit?  Or did he spend a few days soaking up the Dutch culture before returning to his travels?  If Abdulmutallab did have to pass through security at Schipol, then the U.S. needs to lean on the Dutch hard until the security measures pass the smell test.  If, as is the case with many layovers, he didn't have to pass through security a second time, then the Dutch had a serious lapse in judgment in trusting the security measures at an airport in an impoverished, corruptible place like Nigeria.

Thankfully, one Dutch individual was vigilant that day.  The guy who tackled Abdulmutallab and prevented even more urban blight in Detroit.

A decade in review

• 2000:  The most redeeming feature of this year was to no longer hear anything about Y2K.  As I predicted, it was a lot of mass hysteria over a manufactured problem.  One of my co-workers who seemed otherwise relatively level-headed, was convinced a cataclysm would befall mankind when the clock struck twelve, so I relished in asking him why he wasn't in his bunker in January.  Man, I can be a jerk sometimes.  OK, a lot of the time.  I also broke up with my girlfriend "Ginger" shortly after visiting my best friend "Enrique" and meeting his future wife "Maria".  I was afforded an opportunity to repair some damage done to my friendship with my other best friend, "Anna", when she came to the States for her cousin's wedding.  And who could forget the election of 2000?
• 2001:  The election fiasco was finally resolved when the SCOTUS stepped in and pointed out to interested parties how you can't observe different standards for a recount in different counties in the same state, and how a lower court can't ignore their state's constitution because their guy is losing in the recount.  9/11, strip clubs, a return to Germany.  A Christmas in Minnesota.
  
• 2002:  The strike, hot and muggy summer days, and a winter wedding in Puerto Rico (not mine).  Learning to fly.  Finishing a friend's basement.  Saying goodbye to Crusader.  Surviving a layoff.  Wellstone's plane crash (yes, you morons, it was an accident.  Nothing nefarious).  Most memorable was meeting and falling in love with Tawny.
• 2003:  The couple's road trip to D.C.  Fernando's first marriage to "Kianna", aka "The Psychopath".  Whiskey. 
  
• 2004:  My first house.  Living together.  Goodbye to the apartments.
• 2005:  Tawny finishes law school and passes the bar exam on the first try.  A name change for my company.
• 2006:  Introducing Cosmo.  Enrique and Maria have a baby girl.  Goodbye, Grandpa.  The prototype is ready one month early.  Christmas in North Carolina.  Introducing Zippy.
  
• 2007:  Goodbye, Whiskey.  Cosmo begins Agility.  Introducing Morgan.  Introducing Bailey.  Farewell, Dell.  Christmas in Florida.  A room with a view of the Atlantic.
  
• 2008:  Teaching Agility.  Hoppy Hour.  Taking the reins.  Christmas in Minnesota.
  
• 2009:  Expanding Agility.  Building new equipment.  Goodbye, Cosmo.  Introducing Goose and Dori.  Bonding Morgan and Bailey.  Goodbye, Shirley.  Paid Administrative Leave.  Road trip.  Visiting Grandma.  RIF.  Job placement.  Tawny's new apartment.  The team scatters.  A move is in the future.
  

Let the venom fly

As the new year emerges, there's nothing new about the "progressive" hate over Rush Limbaugh's illness.  I'm not saying that the right's members always conducts themselves with grace when revered liberal VIPs take ill or die.  Hating someone for their political or religious beliefs is the not the mark of an enlightened person.  So I'm not surprised by the KOS kiddies and the DUmmies spewing their bile in hoping Limbaugh dies, then justifying it by declaring Limbaugh and his avid fans and listeners as full of venom and hate themselves, in effect categorizing some of their fellow citizens as sub-human.  That's how false liberal compassion and tolerance works in what would otherwise be a situation to burn out the twisted logic circuits of some lefties:  Save the whales.  Save the children.  Save the welfare leeches.  But don't save anyone deemed sub-human!

As I said, I'm not surprised.  Nor would it surprise if some of these petulant human beings still live with their parents.  I'm not saying they do, just that it wouldn't surprise me.  Imagine all that hate-filled rage being tempered with having to learn to actually get along with someone who doesn't think like you do!  You do have to admire their commitment to their cause, however:  Their unyielding zealotry helped them sway recent elections in their favor.  It's a lot easier to win when you set aside such inconvenient things as facts,ethics, and the rule of law.  They learned that lesson well after the contested 2000 presidential election.

One commenter took a step further in the de-humanization of Limbaugh:  That if Jesus were alive today, he would be labeled as a "Liberal Socialist Marxist" by Limbaugh and his listeners.  Alright, enough with the attempts to recruit the memory of Jesus to your cause:  Did He establish his apolitical credits with the whole "Give unto Caesar" speech?  And not to nitpick, but I've never read anything where He advocated forcing others to be charitable.


For the past twelve years, I've lived, worked, and volunteered in a blue state.  And in order to share a peaceful co-existence with neighbors, co-workers, and fellow volunteers, I've often suppressed the urge to "correct" certain fallacies and myths that they accept regarding all Republicans and conservatives.