Census Bureau sends Obamacare comparative data into the abyss
Dramatic changes in questions by Census Bureau makes measuring Obamacare (in)effectiveness more difficult
Census Survey Revisions Mask Health Law Effects
The Census Bureau, the authoritative source of health insurance data for more than three decades, is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obama’s health care law in the next report, due this fall, census officials said.
The changes are intended to improve the accuracy of the survey, being conducted this month in interviews with tens of thousands of households around the country. But the new questions are so different that the findings will not be comparable, the officials said.
An internal Census Bureau document said that the new questionnaire included a “total revision to health insurance questions” and, in a test last year, produced lower estimates of the uninsured. Thus, officials said, it will be difficult to say how much of any change is attributable to the Affordable Care Act and how much to the use of a new survey instrument….A major goal of the law is to increase the number of people with health insurance. The White House reported that 7.5 million people signed up for private health plans on the new insurance exchanges and that enrollment in Medicaid increased by three million since October. But the administration has been unable to say how many of the people gaining coverage were previously uninsured or had policies canceled, so the net increase in coverage is unclear.
Health policy experts and politicians had been assuming that the Census Bureau would help answer those questions when it issued its report on income, poverty and health insurance, based on the Current Population Survey. The annual report shows the number of people with various kinds of health insurance and the number of uninsured for the nation and for each state.
I'm speechless. Completely inexcusable. The administration deserves all of the criticism it will get, and then some. http://t.co/nQEzctGKKW
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 15, 2014
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This administration doesn’t want the real unemployment numbers out in the open. They don’t want Americans to know the true state of our fiscal crisis and they don’t want Obama’s signature law to be outed as a complete failure.
Most transparent administration… ever!
This administration records its data with a can of flat black spray paint.
But think of the time they save when redacting documents under subpoena!
The author of the linked article, Megan McArdle voted for Barack Obama. Remember this when you read anything this woman writes.
This administration has a tendency to attempt to conceal its failures by changing the measurement. This is not new, and as Ms. McArdle says, it is inexcusable.
I’m so sick of the Census Bureau and it’s string of silly surveys which pry into all sorts of places and collects private data by threatening the public with fines for non-compliance. I find that a shredder is the best place for those surveys.
Most Transparent administration EVUH… /
Bogus numbers, all up and down…
Just like the new, delux unemployment numbers that grossly understate the rate of unemployment.
They will also be using new methods in calculating GDP which will have the general effect of increasing it up to almost a full point. No word on whether comparisons with the old will be included for a time. But in this the US will be the only country in the world to abandon the standard figure for its reporting. International comparisons will be very difficult, as it will be apples and oranges.
Suggested addition to Google Translate: DC Speak
They had to break the record before they could fix it.
Feb ’09, Obama moved the Census inside the White House, in one of his first acts as presidents.
No one should be surprised, now, that it is merely a partisan political tool of the Democrat Party.