Originally Posted by The Rani

Not even. They died from illness/injury. Lack of care/insurance does not kill people. Period.

How profound! Of course they die from illness/injury; the question is would they have died if they had sought proper medical care. Then the question is did they not get proper medical care as a result of their being uninsured.

The Harvard statistical study strongly suggests a correlation between uninsured and death; at levels of statistical certainty the exceeds that found between smoking and lung cancer. They offer plausible causative reasons for that level of correlation; you and your partner in your shared current know-nothing flippant posturing, have offered no alternative explanation whatsoever. Why is that?

Anyone with an advanced education should be able to discern good science from the quackery of anecdotal, if not biased, personal experience or the offering of mysterious and unnamed models. Anyone with an advanced degree as you have in the medical field should be embarrassed to put forth the counter arguments you have done to date. You care to put your thinking cap on and provide something worthy of your supposed credentials?

God, we are in trouble if teabagging has resulted in the Libertarians and the Right now believing that what you guys have provided is intelligent, let alone cognitive argument.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Yes, of course. Just like the statistics Phillip-Morris uses. Then again, the issue of sampling techniques is a pretty important one (you would, I'm sure, agree in the second case. Even if, inexplicably, not in the first). Insurance saves lives just like light cigarettes prevent cancer.

Non-smokers? They're not appropriate candidates for our study.

You are now sinking fast into gibberish.

So, because Phillip-Morris falsified their statistics, now ALL statistics are suspect - out of hand, no need to delve in and show why?

That's just simply pathetic. I had thought you more capable that this high school, scratch that, junior high school rubbish.

Yeech.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Then the question is did they that not get proper medical care as a result of being their uninsured.

That is, indeed, the question the survey was designed to answer in the positive. Just like the insurance industry would like it.

The fact, however, is that the single biggest factor (after the fact of the initial ailment) contributing to mortality is not insurance, but care. And a connection between care and insurance is an optional factor whose propagation also serves the interests of the status quo insurance industry at the expense of the public at large.

The Harvard statistical study strongly suggests a correlation between uninsured and death; at levels of statistical certainty the exceeds that found between smoking and lung cancer.

So I'm getting that you totally missed the point. You can demonstrate a 100% statistical correlation between factually unrelated things if you select your sample to eliminate variability in that actually-correlated factors. That's what tobacco companies do when they study only smokers to statistically demonstrate that light cigarettes are safe. That's what your study has done to statistically demonstrate that lack of insurance contributes to death.

As such, while it is an interesting lesson -- though, granted, 101-level at best -- in statistical methodology, it has very little to say about real correlation between insurance and mortality.

As for

you ... have offered no alternative explanation whatsoever.

that's just plain factually incorrect. I (and I'm pretty sure Rani, too) have offered many options on numerous occasions which actually do provide some degree of explanation for why things are the way they are, what could be done to plausibly expect improvement, and why the current course of action is going nowhere resembling the right direction.

Originally Posted by playwrite

So, because Phillip-Morris falsified their statistics, now ALL statistics are suspect - out of hand, no need to delve in and show why?

a) who said 'all statistics are suspect'?
b) the 'why' in the case of your study is what I started out with. The study does not consider anything other than the very limited case of people suffering under an insurance model and uses it to justify the expansion of that model (with minor reorganization). The more I think about it, the more apt a comparison the light cigarettes study seems.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, let's include uninsured patients who DON'T seek medical attention in those statistics and see what happens. Then let's include a statistic about the psychological/medical effects of forcing those people to buy health insurance that they don't even need anyway.

Don't forget uninsured people who don't develop lung cancer because they, knowing that they alone were responsible for the results of their actions, didn't take up smoking.
Or uninsured people who, for the same reason, used power tools just a little bit more carefully. And so on.

There's certainly some of that in the margins, at least. But if we don't look at it at all, we can't say if it is significant. Of course, that's the idea of setting up a study like the one pw found -- to get the answers one is looking for.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

a) who said 'all statistics are suspect'?
b) the 'why' in the case of your study is what I started out with. The study does not consider anything other than the very limited case of people suffering under an insurance model and uses it to justify the expansion of that model (with minor reorganization). The more I think about it, the more apt a comparison the light cigarettes study seems.

All right, then what makes the Harvard study like the Phillip-Morris study? No assumptions, no speculation but exactly what factors/transgression in statistical method between the two studies are similar if not the same?

Here might be some helpful hints -

Given that the data set was from 9000 people from a CDC lifelong study, I don't think you are going to find any valid comparison to the hand picked sample universe employed by the PM studies. Further, of the groups Harvard excluded, in addition to proving that Harvard knew what the exclusion would do in advance and was morally bankrupt enough to do that, you will have to statistically show that under the worst case scenario (i.e. zero correlation between insurance and death in the excluded groups) that small group result would have made a hill-of-beans difference in the overall correlation found with the much larger group - I think that will be a dead end for you as well. Then there is the statistical methods used by just about everyone if the field- there, you'll have to go back to school, get the PhD, and prove the general field to have its collective head up its collective ass - you could probable get the Nobel if you pull that off.

I still think you and Rani's best bet is to provide the mysterious factor that would provide for the insurance correlation but not its causation. Pretty tough, however, when you consider you got this little factoid coming out of the study -

n a sensitivity analysis, we found that the presence of an unobserved factor similar to smoking in prevalence (approximately 25 percent of the study cohort) and its association with insurance status (relative risk of being uninsured equal to 1.66) would have to be associated with a relative eight-year mortality risk of 2.65 for the association between insurance status and mortality to become non-significant when further adjusted for this unmeasured factor (HR: 1.28; 95 percent CI: 0.99, 1.67; p = .06). In comparison, smoking was associated with a relative eight-year mortality risk of 2.48

Yep, what ever mysterious factor you two can come up with must correlate better than smoking does to mortality risk in order to invalidate the insurance correlation. Good luck with that one - that is like the Holy Grail in probability land. But go ahead, go for it - this should be entertaining to me and my statistician friend I'm having a beer with right now.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Don't forget uninsured people who don't develop lung cancer because they, knowing that they alone were responsible for the results of their actions, didn't take up smoking.
Or uninsured people who, for the same reason, used power tools just a little bit more carefully. And so on.

There's certainly some of that in the margins, at least. But if we don't look at it at all, we can't say if it is significant. Of course, that's the idea of setting up a study like the one pw found -- to get the answers one is looking for.

Ah, so you and Rani's combined mysterious factor is that those that are uninsured that don't get sick and don't get injured, also don't die and therefore must not have been in the study.

Yes, those bastards at Harvard did leave out vampires. Well, except perhaps for the ones that came in the door with a wooden stake in their hearts. This could be it! I would have to assume vampires, with or without stakes, don't get insurance and when those evil bastards came into (flew in?) the morgue, they skewed the whole damn study. I'll see if I can find this out. Hell, if true, they may dump one or more tenured profs and get me a free 1-year subscription to the Harvard Club!

I knew this was going to be entertaining but I really had no idea how much!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Not so tough when you've actually provided medical care for uninsured people. People arriving at county hospitals are train wrecks more often than not. The free care is there if and when they need it, but lots of times they don't bother to use it til it's too late.

Sorry, I have no statistics, only plenty of anecdotes. So feel free to ignore my input.

So, from your anecdotal experience, do you see more train wrecks with the uninsured or the insured? The ones that come in too late, do they tend to be the uninsured or the insured?

It may be that your anecdotal experience aligns with the Harvard statistics.

I'm not suggesting that all the train wreck problems, arriving too late problems or whatever medical or non-medical problems that plague the 35 million people that don't have insurance will all be solved by they're having insurance. But maybe it will solve some significant portion of it. I consider that a big credit on the HCR ledger that needs to be weight against whatever debits it may have at large or on a personal level.

By the way, thanks for doing what you do.

Originally Posted by playwrite

All right, then what makes the Harvard study like the Phillip-Morris study? No assumptions, no speculation but exactly what factors/transgression in statistical method between the two studies are similar if not the same?

For christ's sake. I've only said this in, like, every post.

The Harvard study did not include datapoints along any axes than "in need of care under an insurance-only model with/without insurance". However, they treated the results of their analysis of that restricted sample as if it told us something about a general relationship between insurance coverage and mortality.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

the alternate universe version of KIA

conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt, conservative debt

It's more like conservative individual freedom vs liberal government control. Like I've said, all the liberals need to do is figure out a way to fund all your liberal BS without tapping into our conservative money pools and reserves. Bowing down, begging and kissing the ass of China won't work forever dude. But, I must say it's been interesting and at times quite entertaining to watch. Oh well, there's always the third world for the liberal to fall back on. The third world money ain't worth shit but the people are stupid.

KIA
you missed my point and perhaps I was too subtle.

How many times do you have to use the word LIBERAL in a post like it means the same as bodily excrement?

After a while its just a tired old cliche that means nothing of true substance and is only a hollow and worn out strawman.

Originally Posted by The Rani

More like poor and desperate.

You'd think the poor and desperate would wise up and stop voting for the socialists. Sorry Rani, they're stupid. Of coarse, if I was born in the third. I was raised in third world. If all I had to choose from was socialists and all I had to listen to or turn to are socialists. Well, I would be stupid too. THANK GOD, I WAS BORN IN AMERICA BABY!

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

KIA
you missed my point and perhaps I was too subtle.

How many times do you have to use the word LIBERAL in a post like it means the same as bodily excrement?

After a while its just a tired old cliche that means nothing of true substance and is only a hollow and worn out strawman.

You don't have to be subtle with me. I'm not the subtle type. So, are you getting my point Mr. Liberal who spends the bulk of his time here bashing on the conservatives? If MR. Liberal can't take it, Mr. Liberal should stop dishing it or at the least quite whining about the dishings coming back at him. This isn't school big guy. This is the way it is in the real world big guy. As the old saying goes, before you cast harsh words or judgement in my direction, you should take a hard hard look at yourself.

Originally Posted by The Rani

In India I think they vote for whoever gives them the best saris.

In America, I think they vote for whoever looks and sounds the best educated.

KIA
its a free country and if you want to dress up like a ghost and jump out of the bushes screaming "LIBERAL" everytime an idea comes along which threatens you own entitlement, thats fine with me. After a while the ghosts only become objects of scorn and ridicule with their overexposure.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

For christ's sake. I've only said this in, like, every post.

The Harvard study did not include datapoints along any axes than "in need of care under an insurance-only model with/without insurance". However, they treated the results of their analysis of that restricted sample as if it told us something about a general relationship between insurance coverage and mortality.

Ah, I think your missing some basic understanding of the study.

Those on the axis are dead, they are not in need of any health care.

Stripped down, this study is pretty simple. Go to the morgue and count the bodies of those that had insurance and those that didn't. Leave out the really dried up ones that were are Medicare.

If "uninsured" had no correlation with increased death, then out of the 259 bodies (representing the US population not on Medicare), only 46 bodies (representing the US population without insurance) should be from folks who were uninsured. The study found 64 bodies of the uninsured, a statistically-valid 40% over-representation of the uninsured.

Further, in order for the correlation to not be causation, the sensitivity analysis showed that the uninsured would have to have some mysterious factor that is (a) associated with them in statistical preponderance than compared to the insured and (b) statistically more deadly than smoking. Maybe AIDS, maybe alcoholism, maybe suicide, maybe lifestyle, etc.

However, you're brining up that many uninsured are young and healthy actually greatly diminishes the likelihood that you can come up with a mysterious characteristic more greatly associated with the uninsured and more deadly than smoking.

Again, all I can come up with is that a great deal of our uninsured youth while 'healthy' are actually not only vampires but really slow vampires incapable of avoiding the old stake-through-the-heart routine. This may explain something that I have found completely unexplainable. And no, its not why vampires with stakes in their heart don’t seek medical attention (with or without insurance). No, I can grasp that. What I have found truly unexplainable, until now, is youth's current interest in the Twilight series and other vampire entertainment venues.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

It's more like conservative individual freedom vs liberal government control. Like I've said, all the liberals need to do is figure out a way to fund all your liberal BS without tapping into our conservative money pools and reserves. Bowing down, begging and kissing the ass of China won't work forever dude. But, I must say it's been interesting and at times quite entertaining to watch. Oh well, there's always the third world for the liberal to fall back on. The third world money ain't worth shit but the people are stupid.

First of all KIA, liberals like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and a host of others, pay more in personal taxes in one year than you, your entire extended family and probable most of the people you know will pay in a lifetime combined. So, quite your whining and pay your measly share.

Second, try to educate yourself a little about the real world. Right now, its the US dollar that's becoming "ain't worth shit." The only thing that allows you to still shop at WalMart is that the Chinese have pegged their currency to our dollar so they can keep exporting cheap shit to Wal-Mart for you to afford to buy and they can keep their masses gainfully employed, happy and entering middle class status while our middle class dries up and dies.

And third, this was caused by the greedy-ass policies of what has past as 'conservative' since Ronald Ray-gun kicked off the 3T with the mesmerized support of the faux-macho sheeple like yourself, cumulating in Bush's two unaffordable tax cuts, an idiotic Medicare expansion, deregulation and lack of any regulatory enforcement of the financial sector, and a war of choice undertaken through lies and deceit.

My advice to you?

Wake the F up!

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

KIA
its a free country and if you want to dress up like a ghost and jump out of the bushes screaming "LIBERAL" everytime an idea comes along which threatens you own entitlement, thats fine with me. After a while the ghosts only become objects of scorn and ridicule with their overexposure.

All I have to say is like wise to Mr. Liberal, I think Mr. Liberal should start listening and adhereing to his own advice. Of coarse, if Mr. Liberal were to actually LITSTEN AND ADHERE to his own advice, Mr. Liberal would be cutting into himself and deminishing his own relevance.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

All I have to say is like wise to Mr. Liberal, I think Mr. Liberal should start listening and adhereing to his own advice. Of coarse, if Mr. Liberal were to actually LITSTEN AND ADHERE to his own advice, Mr. Liberal would be cutting into himself and deminishing his own relevance.

In style, partisanship, degree of originality, and mastery of school yard level taunting, I think you two match each other just fine.

Originally Posted by playwrite

First of all KIA, liberals like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and a host of others, pay more in personal taxes in one year than you, your entire extended family and probable most of the people you know will pay in a lifetime combined. So, quite your whining and pay your measly share.

Dude, they're not a couple liberals, they're a couple of evil money hungry TYCOONS! Warren Buffet got a piece for his support. I'm sure Gates is getting a piece for his support as well. Buffet is a bargain shopper and he picked up a few bargains.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Second, try to educate yourself a little about the real world. Right now, its the US dollar that's becoming "ain't worth shit." The only thing that allows you to still shop at WalMart is that the Chinese have pegged their currency to our dollar so they can keep exporting cheap shit to Wal-Mart for you to afford to buy and they can keep their masses gainfully employed, happy and entering middle class status while are middle class dries up and dies.

Do you think printing what the liberals need is going to make it worth more? We could easily pay for the war as we go. Don't blame me, you voted for all of it. I supported crash and burn. You see, I can be a liberal too.

Originally Posted by playwrite

And third, this was caused by the greedy-ass policies of what has past as 'conservative' since Ronald Ray-gun kicked off the 3T with the mesmerized support of the faux-macho sheeple like yourself, cumulating in Bush's two unaffordable tax cuts, an idiotic Medicare expansion, deregulation and lack of any regulatory enforcement of the financial sector, and a war of choice undertaken through lies and deceit.

My advice to you?

Wake the F up!

Dude, I'm awake. I'm not the one who is in your position. I could only be in your position, saying what you're saying, supporting what you support, if I wasn't awake and f-g off for half my life. I've been voting for progress all along just like you. I voted to move people off the Welfare role. I voted to force a balanced budget on Congress. True, I haven't been voting for the type or the same kinds of progress that you've voting for but I've been voting for progress. At the end of the day, it all comes back to you. You see, I have had nothing to do with you, what is or isn't yours, or what has or has not happened with or in your life buddy.

KIA
sadly, your version of "progress" sounds a great deal like the desire of Glen Beck to go back to the glory years of the Gilded Age. Generally, we tend to think of "progress" as a move forward, not to the past.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

Dude, they're not a couple liberals, they're a couple of evil money hungry TYCOONS! Warren Buffet got a piece for his support. I'm sure Gates is getting a piece for his support as well. Buffet is a bargain shopper and he picked up a few bargains.

I take it by "support" you mean their support of Obama. Hate to pop your bubble there, chief, but these guys were liberals long before Obama was a household name - at least in your household.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

Do you think printing what the liberals need is going to make it worth more? We could easily pay for the war as we go. Don't blame me, you voted for all of it. I supported crash and burn. You see, I can be a liberal too.

Can you translate this from tinfoilnese to English?

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

Dude, I'm awake. I'm not the one who is in your position. I could only be in your position, saying what you're saying, supporting what you support, if I wasn't awake and f-g off for half my life. I've been voting for progress all along just like you. I voted to move people off the Welfare role. I voted to force a balanced budget on Congress. True, I haven't been voting for the type or the same kinds of progress that you've voting for but I've been voting for progress. At the end of the day, it all comes back to you. You see, I have had nothing to do with you, what is or isn't yours, or what has or has not happened with or in your life buddy.

No dude, you're still in some sort of 1980 coma. I hate to wake you and tell you we have a $9 Trillion deficit - $5 Trillion caused by Bush's unaffordable tax cuts and a stupid expansion of Medicare; and another $3.5T caused by automatic counter-cyclical measure (e.g., food stamps, unemployment insurance) to deal with the biggest financial FUBAR since the 1930s or the last time the type of idiots you vote for were firmly 'in charge.' If this is your kind of progress, I think this is some kind of progress we can do without there chief, hey?

And how does this 'come back to me' because 'you have nothing to do with me?' Can you put your tinfoilnese decoder ring back on and let me know what ya mean there, chief? I really don't have a clue when it comes to such gibberish.

KIA's posts are reminding me of Galbraith's famous quote:

"The conservative is engaged in one of the oldest things in moral philosophy, the search for an ethical justification for selfishness."

Originally Posted by Odin

"The conservative is engaged in one of the oldest things in moral philosophy, the search for an ethical justification for selfishness."[/I]

Gee, I guess this makes you the conservative. No surprise. I always knew that you are one.

Not sure if everyone reads Mr. Howe's blog, and I know this is kind of old so it may have been discussed elsewhere, but I wanted to post this to see if it generates any discussion:

http://blog.lifecourse.com/2009/11/252/

Many informed Millennial (born 1982-200?) will want to ask why — after all their struggles to find jobs, the higher tuitions, the extra debt, and the open faucet on federal debt that they will have to pay back—they also need to pay a new hidden tax to benefit Boomer (born 1943-1960) nearing retirement. Millennials like to be regarded as more civic minded. But I don’t think they like to have a “kick me” sign attached to their backs. If this goes through, some national leader is going to discover this issue and push it in ways that could get ugly. One could, for example, see low-income, go-bare Millennials heavily featured in the Tenth Amendment challenges that will inevitably occur on the mandate. I’m not looking forward to any of this.

His post speaks to a lot of underlying fears I've been batting around in my head for a while re: health care reform, that Millies are ultimately going to get the short end of the stick on this one.

I don't mean in the "generational theft" way - deficit spending is basically a proxy war. For the left, it's a roundabout way to complain about the defense budget, and for the right, it's a roundabout way to complain about social security and medicare. I mean in the way that Millies are going to be subsidizing 50something Boomers, when we're already worse off than most.

I'd like to see a case for getting these 50somethings out of the workforce- but the logical way to do that would just be to lower the SS/Medicare eligibility age and be done with it. It would be nice not having to compete against people with 20 years more experience in trying to get a job.