Posted by Tina
According to Guy Benson at Hot Air, via the New York Times, the Census Bureau, with administration assistance and approval, have completely changed questions to be asked relating relating to health care.
Benson quotes Megan McArdle, a woman he calls a “respected centrist” as being quite alarmed over the changes.
For several months now, whenever the topic of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act came up, I’ve been saying that it was too soon to tell its ultimate effects. We don’t know how many people have paid for their new insurance policies, or how many of those who bought policies were previously uninsured. For that, I said, we will have to wait for Census Bureau data, which offer the best assessment of the insurance status of the whole population. Other surveys are available, but the samples are smaller, so they’re not as good; the census is the gold standard. Unfortunately, as I invariably noted, these data won’t be available until 2015. I stand corrected: These data won’t be available at all. Ever. I’m speechless. Shocked. Stunned. Horrified. Befuddled. Aghast, appalled, thunderstruck, perplexed, baffled, bewildered and dumbfounded.
Read the New York Times article here.
Some of you may recall back in 2009 when President Obama put the census under the authority of the White House instead of the Commerce Department where it had traditionally been administered.
See folks this is what you they when they don’t want the public to know what the real numbers are…just change the methodology, the authority, and the reporting. Voila!
I began this journey of discovery reading about a poor woman who lost her insurance and then, after signing up under Obamacare, found she had also lost access to medications and doctors. Her story is tragic. But as Democrat leaders continue to tell us, stories like hers are just Republican concocted lies!
Other reported liars reveal they have also being audited by the IRS after going public:
Bill Elliot of South Carolina has stage four cancer and had insurance that covered most of his treatments. Then it was canceled because of ObamaCare.
His doctor told him he is in full remission, his treatments have been working.
He voted for Obama, in part because he believed the president’s words when he said “if you like your plan you can keep it.” But the new policy under ObamaCare would cost him $1,500 per month along with a $13,000 deductible, and it won’t even cover medicine or medical devices.
Elliot went public about his dilemma, doing media interviews to bring attention to his situation. All of a sudden he received a letter from the IRS telling him they would be auditing him for tax year 2009.
The IRS is simply another handy dandy tool in the hands of this administration…and why not, most folks don’t seem to care that their fellow citizens are being unfairly targeted and harassed by U.S. Government agencies.
Few will know that claims made by President Obama about the success of his signature legislation, taken from the fundamentally trasnsformed census, won’t reflect the reality of Obamacare either. C’est la guerre!
Bottom line: Obama continues to lie!
Typical Obumble move. He doesn’t like the numbers so he changes the way they’re calculated – just like he’s done with the unemployment figures.
And isn’t it amazing that for 6 months, Obumble has been unable to answer questions on Obumblecare numbers yet all of a sudden those numbers magically appear on his Teleprompter.
Once a liar, always a liar.
As I’ve said before, there is nothing out of bounds, nothing to vile or low, nothing this bunch won’t stoop to in order to advance the socialist, fundamental transformation of America.
The anti-freedom extremists in control of the Democrat Party hate individual freedom, hate the vision of the founders, and seek absolute power for themselves.
Tina, Bill Elliot was misinformed about the cost of a new insurance plan under Obamacare:
“Which reminds me of Bill Elliott, who told Fox News that he was going to choose to forego cancer treatment and “let nature take its course” rather than pay for the $1,500 per month plan his “insurance guy” offered to him under Obamacare. Another Obama voter, too! But … in in his state, South Carolina, the most expensive plan on the market for someone over 50 (a guesstimate by one fact-checker) is $768 a month. If Elliott is five years younger, it’s just $440. He also said his “guy” told him that the $1,500 per month plan wouldn’t pay for pharmaceuticals or medical devices – something even the most ardent Obamacare critic must realize is illegal under that law. That’s one of the things they don’t like about it! Perhaps the real conclusion here is that Elliott needs to fire “his guy”.
Still, $440 is a lot more than the $170 per month he said he had been paying. So conservatives celebrated when it turned out a local attorney was able to find a sympathetic ear (Tea Party fav South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley) for the argument that Elliot’s original insurer was breaking a law older than Obamacare – HIPAA – by cancelling his insurance. The funny thing is that the 1990s law that seems to have allowed Elliott to get his coverage back is the kind of must-cover mandate they also don’t like about the ACA.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/04/obamacare-horror-stories-debunked
It’s irresponsible to just believe any anecdote you hear that supports your narrative, Tina. It is even more irresponsible for news organizations like FOX to promote these horror stories without doing any research into them whatsoever at all. We all remember the case of Julie Boonstra. The political group who used her in their ads didn’t do any research to find out if her claims were true, because they didn’t care.
I sympathize with the uncertainty many people are facing right now. I myself had trouble enrolling on the Covered California website last week. It was a frustrating experience. But that’s no excuse for this kind of fear-mongering. We have a duty to get and promote accurate information about healthcare. These are life and death situations and it is seriously vile and low to treat them as partisan games.
Chris it is irresponsible for President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and others to lie to the American people…but they do. (And most of the time the following entities cover for, promote, and lie in order to help them.)
It’s irresponsible for ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and any number of other liberal publications and bloggers to post misinformation, or at times purposeful lies…but they do.
This is a war and a game the Democrats started and put their extremist mark on following fifty years of near total control in the Congress and the felling of a Republican President. You fit right in, pretending to be in control of the high road while consciously or unconsciously being part of and defending the most egregious example.
You come here acting like you are standing on some sort of sacred ground (as a representative of the left). I’m here to tell you you are not and I’m really tired of the pompous, holier than thou attitude you display here.
Of all the laws to take a stand on in terms of lies and deception this is a corker! You have learned your Alinsky lessons well, Chris.
This law was shoved down the throats of the American people through deception, lies, tricks, and sheer unadulterated abuses of congressional authority, and quite possibly albeit indirectly, our voting laws…by Democrats alone! Obamacare is harming real people with serious medical and economic problems. It is proving to be unreasonably expensive or budget busting for way too many people. It is harming the economy and job growth. It creates further incentives toward dependency and it widens that class of people comfortably stuck in the lower wrung. It has caused doctors to retire early and others to reconsider being doctors…shortages are expected. Waves of new problems will follow…but the Democrat hope is that delays in implementation will get the them passed the next election. They can hope.
If Democrats had been truthful about their intentions and the affects their proposals would have, the ACA would never have passed. It would never have received such wide support.
It should be repealed now!
Frankly, your preaching and red pencil arrogance, especially after the eight years of left wing partisan games and Chicago style politics used to destroy the reputations of Bush, Cheney, et all…including your own vicious and gleeful criticisms here on PS…is disgusting, disingenuous… and hilarious all at once.
A lot of things have changed in the last twenty years. Information moves practically at the speed of light. Fact checking isn’t always done properly and it is not always obvious when information is incomplete or inaccurate. Political games are part of the political process. You look like a fool pretending you live outside it.
Thankfully we still live in a nation where free speech is honored (for the most part). You certainly have the opportunity to express your opinions and add to or correct information here at Post Scripts. You would be better received were you to get off that ridiculous high horse and realize that even with some correcting information you are not always 100% right.
I don’t know where the Guardian got its information or whether it is completely accurate or in a time frame that didn’t give the writer the advantage of hindsight. For all I know the cases cited were originally misunderstandings based on the many problems in the system and at the time of telling were true. The article is not lacking in partisan game playing.
Also, a good many of the problems people are encountering are absolutely true so to characterize these problems categorically as “fairy tales,” “urban legends,” or even “lies” is just as misleading, political, and irresponsible as anything done from a right perspective well meaning or partisan.
These ARE life and death situations…and they were completely unnecessary events…none of this had to happen to fix the various problems that were used as an excuse for passing this complex, crippling, life altering, destructive, monstrous law. All of the concerns could have been addressed with a few simple changes to existing law. None of the people that have lost or will lose their insurance, doctors, hospitals and prescriptions had to have that happen to them. None of the harm to the economy and jobs situation had to happen! None of the chaos it is causing or will cause various people within the industry had to happen! None of the long term effects have to happen. The chaos and the secret reasons for passing this particular law are causing big problems. Its an outrage!
This law is a power grab. It is a redistribution scheme and the harm it has and will do be damned. Shame on you! You are as lacking in compassion as anyone could be to the people whose lives have been made a mess and whose careers have dramatically ended or been severely altered. I continue to be astounded by your cold lock step support.
Tina, what in God’s name is your point? That because democrats have lied, it’s OK for you to do so as well? That I am in the wrong for correcting any right-wing misinformation about the ACA, because the democrats are worse? That it doesn’t matter whether any of the things you say are true or not, because the ACA should be destroyed by any means necessary? I’m sorry, but the truth doesn’t work that way. Honesty doesn’t work that way. Partisanship does, though.
Tina, can you point to any specific lies that I have told about the Affordable Care Act? Once again you are holding me accountable for lies told by others simply for being a Democrat and supporting something you don’t like. I’m only holding you accountable for specific statements you have said and promoted here on your website.
You’re saying that I have no right to call out falsehoods from your side because there have been falsehoods from my side as well. If you actually applied that standard to yourself, we would never be able to discuss anything at all! Politicians from both sides lie about every issue. It’s our job to sort through the truth and make sure we get the best information.
If you had responded to Obama’s lies (and yes, he has told quite a few and I have acknowledged them) with nothing but the truth, you would have the moral high ground. But you haven’t done that. You’ve responded to pro-Obamacare lies with anti-Obamacare lies of your own.
Here are a small sampling of falsehoods you yourself have either told yourself or promoted here on Post Scripts:
–Obamacare contains death panels.
–Obamacare adds to the deficit.
–Obamacare requires all insurance plans to be exactly the same.
–The CBO said that Obamacare will “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.”
–Obamacare bans mammograms for women of a certain age.
–Obamacare is a government takeover of healthcare.
–Obamacare contains an exemption for members of congress and their staff.
–Obamacare made it unaffordable for Julie Boonstra and others to obtain health insurance.
–Obamacare forces doctors to ask patients about their sexual history.
–Obamacare has significantly contributed to a rise in part-time work and unemployment.
–Obamacare has significantly raised premiums.
–More people have lost their insurance since Obamacare than have gained it.
All of these claims have made made or forwarded by you at some point, and all of them have been proven false.
If you have any comparable list of lies that I, specifically, have told, let me know. If all you have are lies told by Democratic politicians, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve already acknowledged them. I want to know why you think I have been anywhere near as dishonest as you in our discussions. I am not holding you accountable for the words or actions of anyone but yourself, and I expect to be held to the same standard.
The point Chris is that your evidence against the Americans that have come forward cannot be confirmed as truthful because the outlets you rely on lie and have been lying, manipulating and spinning the “facts,” and the “truth,” for decades. The media has been political and have been covering for and promoting for Democrats for years. The only way either one of us could discover the absolute truth about any of these Americans is if we could do a thorough investigation ourselves.
I suggest you take a step back. A mountain of lies have been perpetrated by the current administration.
It is nuts that you find it more compelling to hound me over small things while being unfazed by the destruction that has flowed from the BIG lies and tricks and manipulations of the Obama administration. You strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel!
Many fine American loving citizens have been pushing back against the radical left’s agenda for many years. There is a frustrating pattern that always happens when anyone on the right steps forward to push back…they are targeted for destruction. The left has always had nuclear weapons in this regard. they are happy about lying and destroying for the cause. We are working with small arms to try to get the attention of the people and when we do we are scorned as liars and demeaned as stupid, backward and racist. The silencing of these fine American’s voices is always the point. The left has perfected it’s methods and delivery. And you, Chris, have picked up that method, whether consciously or unconsciously.
J. Paul Masko writes an excellent piece in The American Thinker today. I offer it as a lifeline to you.
I refuse to engage you further about “lies”. I can only tell you that I do not intentionally put forth false information and I do not practice telling lies for the cause or the right’s agenda. I care about people. I care about seeing that the form of government that this nation was founded on survives because it offers every citizen the very best chance in life. Those are my only political motivations. I align with republicans because the party is the only party (so far) with power and a platform that has a chance of moving toward realization of my main concerns…opportunity for all in the best nation on earth.
Tina: “The point Chris is that your evidence against the Americans that have come forward cannot be confirmed as truthful because the outlets you rely on lie and have been lying, manipulating and spinning the “facts,” and the “truth,” for decades. The media has been political and have been covering for and promoting for Democrats for years. The only way either one of us could discover the absolute truth about any of these Americans is if we could do a thorough investigation ourselves.”
This is a cop-out, Tina. In the case of Boonstra, the facts are readily available. She went forward with her story and made some very far-fetched claims without doing all the research to see whether her new plan would actually be affordable or not. She later admitted that she didn’t actually know what she was talking about. Her response after the fact-checkers researched her healthcare costs for her was to simply say “I don’t believe it” and “it can’t be true.” Since then she hasn’t said a word. If her claims had been true she and Americans for Prosperity would be saying “I told you so” all over America.
The sources I refer to as debunking her Obamacare horror story, among others, are the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, Politifact, FactCheck.com, and Snopes. I hope you are not suggesting that these sources have been “lying for decades,” because that would be completely false.
You’re once again trying to blur the lines between fact and opinion in order to spread distrust of reputable fact-checking agencies simply because you don’t like their conclusions. I won’t stand for that. We need to be able to distinguish between good sources of information and bad sources, between fact and opinion, between truth and fiction. Your moral relativism, which has been so ironically embraced by the Republican party, is an excuse for you to act as if even the most uninformed, ignorant opinion should be given equal weight to well-researched fact checking. Furthermore, you act like anyone who doesn’t agree with that is simply an elitist bully. It’s no wonder that Republicans, especially the Tea Party wing, have embraced this strategy. They’re the modern Know-Nothing party. The only way they can win is by making Americans more ignorant. Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck–you couldn’t find a more anti-intellectual bunch if you tried, and that’s part of their whole appeal to the Tea Party movement. It’s wrong and it is destroying our ability as a society to get accurate information.
“A mountain of lies have been perpetrated by the current administration.”
I asked you specifically for lies perpetrated by me.
“It is nuts that you find it more compelling to hound me over small things”
Tina, if you believed that these Obamacare horror stories were “small things,” you wouldn’t post them! You certainly wouldn’t accompany these stories with such passionate and hyperbolic language about how Obamacare is “ruining people’s lives.”
It’s funny that in order to save face you’re now resorting to trivializing your own claims! You can’t keep promoting these stories as “tragic” consequences of Obamacare, and then when they’re debunked, act like they never mattered much to the debate in the first place. That is ridiculous.
“I refuse to engage you further about “lies”.”
Of course. You know that you can’t point to any examples of me lying, and you also know that you can’t continue to defend the laundry list of lies you have told that I just laid out. It’s not surprising that rather than admitting that all of these claims you have made are false, you simply refuse to engage. You have way too much invested in this to just admit you might have been wrong about something.
“I can only tell you that I do not intentionally put forth false information and I do not practice telling lies for the cause or the right’s agenda.”
You can say that until the cows come home, Tina, but it won’t change the reality of your behavior. You have done little more than put forth false claims about Obamacare for the past six years. Whether you convince yourself that they are true is really immaterial at this point. You need to do some better research before you make these ridiculous claims, and you need to be honorable enough to admit when you are wrong. Anything less is dishonest.
One more thing, Chris. I suggest you seriously reconsider this post. It is about the President of the United States and the Census Bureau that he put under his authority dramatically changing the questions on the census regarding healthcare to make it impossible to determine the affect of the ACA. They have made sure the data will not be accurate and have afforded a perfect environment in which to create reality…to lie!
The only thing that mattered to you was finding a way to discredit Mr. Elliot and nail me in the process. Do you understand? Do you get it?
The President is a man with incredible power who is using that power in vile, possibly illegal and definitely immoral, ways to trick and manipulate the people and to push his transformation agenda.
Incredibly, that has no affect on your sensibilities! None! It has not caused you to question. It has not caused you to reconsider the motivations and methods of those who defend and promote this law. It has not made you uneasy or uncomfortable…at least in any way that I can see. I hope you will step back from the noise and fully take in the American Thinker article posted above because I have come to care about you as I care about my own kids and I see a young man who was once bright and open who is now turning into a closed, radical ice man.
“J. Paul Masko writes an excellent piece in The American Thinker today. I offer it as a lifeline to you.”
The first third of that piece is fairly interesting on-point; the writer seems to understand a lot (at least in theory) about how media influences our consciousness. I have no quarrel with his premise that what is and is not covered, and how, shapes our minds and our society at large, and I don’t think any educated person could disagree with that.
It’s when he gets specific that he goes off the rails. In an attempt to point out media bias, he only reveals his own:
“So we have huge swaths of the population for whom significant stories don’t exist: Fast and Furious, details about Benghazi, Jonathan Turley in front of the House Judiciary Committee, and countless others.”
Perhaps Masko has stopped reading the Times, and stopped digesting mainstream media altogether for that matter. Benghazi and Fast and Furious were both covered extensively by the NYT and other mainstream sources. Benghazi continues to be reported on in a mostly “he said she said” manner, with equal time given to conservative accusations of a White House-led cover-up, and the actual facts which have been available for some time. It is ridiculous to say that not enough press time has been given to Benghazi, especially compared to the many embassy attacks in our history that have received considerably less attention.
Masko continues to simply rattle off disproven Republican talking points:
“But The Times and its cascade are at their biased worst when they remain silent in the face of gross misreporting and misrepresentations, or corrupt and nefarious behavior: Bush or Reagan blaming an unknown video for a heavy-weapons terror attack would provoke derisive banner headlines in The Times…but not with Obama;”
Three things here:
1) Obama did not “blame an unknown video for a heavy-weapons terror attack.” The video was quite well known in Benghazi and other Muslim cites at the time, and some of the attackers explicitly cited the video as their motivation. This was relayed by many journalists and CIA sources at the time. The White House later revised the talking points once they realized that the video was not the main inspiration for the attack, and that there was at least some planning involved, but we still do not know the full extent of the planning or the influence of the video. Even far-right anti-Islam blogger Daniel Pipes has acknowledged that the video played at least some role in motivating the attackers, and cites compelling evidence:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/07/did-the-innocence-of-muslims-video-play-a-role-in
2) Masko has no idea what the media’s reaction would be if Benghazi had happened under Bush or Reagan, and either president had reacted in the same way as Obama. He is simply guessing. He does this a lot throughout the piece; instead of comparing Obama’s media coverage to actual media coverage of his predecessors, he simply compares Obama’s media coverage to hypothetical things the media might do under other presidents. This is not convincing; it would be far better to compare media coverage of Obama’s handling of Benghazi to actual media coverage of Bush or Reagan’s handling of similar crises.
3) This is especially ironic since there are very obvious comparisons that already exist, no hypotheticals necessary. True, Bush never wrongly blamed a video for terror attack that killed four people. But he did wrongly claim that a country had nuclear weapons, and led us into war with that country on those premises, leading to the deaths of thousands of people. Yes, you could argue that he did this with the best of intentions, and that it wasn’t his fault the intel was wrong. But you could also say the same of Obama and Benghazi. Maybe the mainstream media hasn’t been as harsh to Obama over Benghazi as they were to Bush over Iraq. But leading a country to war under false pretenses seems like it would deserve a lot more media scrutiny than failing to get good intel on a CIA annex attack.
Reagan, in addition to having embassy attacks under his watch that his staff says could have been prevented, lied about the Iran-Contra affair. Both are issues Masko could have used to compare media coverage between Reagan and Obama; instead, he presents versions of Reagan and Bush that were simply controversy-free, needlessly attacked by a biased media while Obama gets a free pass.
“similar mocking banners would follow an absurd stance by John Boehner that the contents of a massive, culture-shifting federal bill would remain hidden until after it was passed…but not with Nancy Pelosi;”
Here Masko reveals himself to be little more than a partisan activist. The suggestion that the contents of Obamacare “remained hidden” until after its passage is so ridiculous as to barely merit a response. But because this meme has taken such a hold in conservative circles, it’s worth correcting. The fact is that there has never been a bill that has been subject to as much round-the-clock coverage as the Affordable Care Act. Yes, it was a large bill; yes, it was confusing; yes, it was subject to a million alterations before and even after its passage. But anyone who truly wanted to know what was in it had every opportunity to do so before its passage. Masko is taking Pelosi’s comment out of context. She was specifically referring to the misinformation campaign waged by conservatives when she said “We have to pass it to find out what is in it, beyond the fog of controversy.” What she clearly meant was that the results of the law would speak louder than her opposition’s claims. The full context makes this obvious, but Republicans continued to take it out of context and pretend to be literalists in order to score cheap points. Masko is once again showing his own bias, and his main objection seems to be that the New York Times doesn’t share that bias.
“and as far as we know, none of The Times’ legal whizzes or bean counters saw fit to dissect the Affordable Care Act and weigh it against Obama’s claims…for…years.”
Again, ridiculous. Has Masko even bothered to do a Lexis/Nexis search for the NYT’s coverage of the ACA? Hell, has he tried Google?
“The Times would’ve howled at George W. Bush distributing military attire to an audience at a news conference to feign military support…”
Again, Masko doesn’t know this. What qualifies him to make these statements? Does he have the power to peer into alternate realities?
He then goes on to compare Sarah Palin’s treatment, which was at times unfair, to both crucifixion and sexual abuse of a child. Which is just…no. Stop. What are you saying.
The second worst part is this:
“There’s a psycho-emotional sheering when politicians and policies appear one way to a reasonable man-on-the-street, but the mainstream news and cultural media portray them drastically otherwise: people are left scratching their heads and wondering what they missed. To a reasonable man-on-the-street, for example, Barack Obama seems like a charming, bright fellow…but a flim-flam or con man who’s very comfortable with lying; many of us have seen his like before: the guy who strolls into a competition and, although he’s done next to no preparation and is woefully ignorant of the topics at hand, wins with charm, clever turns of phrase and good looks. Obama is so used to easy wins that he’s not in the habit of working hard…so when topics and problems get more complex, when he can’t breeze in and charm his way through, he fails and blames others. To The Times and its cascade, apparently, Barack Obama is truly brilliant; to the reasonable man-on-the-street, he’s a bright, charming, well-spoken flim-flammer who plays loose with the truth…and plays a lot of golf.
To a reasonable man-on-the-street, Hillary Clinton seems to have an average to low-average Ivy League mind and galumphs along, uninspired…while an adoring media and public gush and overlook missteps and misrepresentations. Mitt Romney seemed like a stellar fellow: honest, hard-working, self-effacing. In the cascade, he was an elitist, money-grabbing misogynist.”
I love how Masko apparently knows what every reasonable man on the street thinks. In Masko’s world, everyone knows Obama is a con artist, that Hilary Clinton isn’t really all that smart, and Mitt Romney apparently has no flaws worth mentioning. Seriously.
As a piece of media criticism, this is so hilarious I’m half convinced it’s satire. How in the world can Masko honestly think he is demonstrating the credibility to take the media to task over bias? Even if what he’s saying is true, he demonstrates his own bias so many times it’s just plain laughable.
Thank you Chris, you have cleared up any questions that might have remained about your total dedication and immersion into the lying leftist box…I believe I now know you comrade.
Tina: “Thank you Chris, you have cleared up any questions that might have remained about your total dedication and immersion into the lying leftist box”
Either tell me what I have lied about, or take back your false accusation against me. Anything else is dishonorable and cowardly.
The President has told the American people that 8 million people have signed up for the ACA and that that means its a great success. He said the debate is over…in other words, we should shut up.
Sorry, no can do.
Powerline reports that responsible adults have real world concerns that the dreamers of transformed America never even bother to consider:
The so-called “success” of the ACA is not about the workability or the financial viability of the program for the government or for all Americans.
Success is reaching the magic number, whether those sign-ups have paid for their premiums or not, so the President and Democrats can claim victory prior to the election.
Do not be fooled by the egregious lies and deception.
Tina: “One more thing, Chris. I suggest you seriously reconsider this post. It is about the President of the United States and the Census Bureau that he put under his authority dramatically changing the questions on the census regarding healthcare to make it impossible to determine the affect of the ACA. They have made sure the data will not be accurate”
That’s your opinion.
The Census Bureau insists that the changes in the questions will improve accuracy:
“The recent changes to the Current Population Survey’s questions related to health insurance coverage is the culmination of 14 years of research and two national tests in 2010 and 2013 clearly showing the revised questions provide more precise measures of health insurance through improved respondent recall.
This change was announced in September 2013 and implemented because the evidence showed that reengineering the questions provides demonstrably more accurate results. The Census Bureau only implements changes in survey methodology based on research, testing, and evidence presented for peer review.
The revised questions were implemented in the Current Population Survey beginning in February 2014 in time for data collection covering calendar year 2013, and thus will provide a more accurate baseline for assessments of changes in insurance coverage, including that of the Affordable Care Act.”
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/statement-by-census-bureau-director-john-h-thompson-on-improved-health-insurance-questions-in-the-current-population-survey-255408741.html
Others agree:
“Census watchers are adamant that the change is not being made for political reasons, but to improve the data. “These changes are scientifically driven, but sometimes poorly timed,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former overseer of the Census for Congress and co-director of the Census Project.
Indeed, this particular change has been in the works for years, and was the subject of detailed, peer-reviewed studies. The most recent study from 2013 can be found here. Another study was conducted in 2010, and other studies and discussions go back as far as the early years of the George W. Bush administration.
In order for data to stay relevant, Lowenthal explained, surveys need to be modified and updated. “There has to be changes in questions, and frankly there may never be a good time,” she said.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/republicans-obamacare-census_n_5154752.html
Furthermore, the changes will not take effect until 2015, so the same questions will be in play the year before the ACA’a major programs were enacted and the year after:
“The survey will make it difficult to compare the uninsured rate for 2012, the last year for the old questions, and 2013, the first year for the new questions. But making the change now means that 2013 and 2014 — the year before and after Obamacare’s big programs started — are using the same question set.
Census officials told the Times that the changes will make the survey a more accurate measure of who actually has health insurance coverage. The new survey questions are expected to show a higher uninsured rate. In a test last year, they found that 10.6 percent of Americans said they did not have health insurance when using the new questions — compared to 12.5 percent when people were surveyed with the old ones.”
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/5617084/obamacare-new-census-insurance
Tina, the reason I didn’t immediately comment on the main point of this post was that I hadn’t had time to fact-check your claims about it. Now that I have, perhaps you can forgive me for not immediately joining in on the latest manufactured outrage parade. The first year impact of Obamacare will still be measured by the same criteria as the year before, and the changes which will come later have been developed for years before Obama was president, and seem to be being made for scientific reasons.
As always, if you have any real evidence of a cover-up or conspiracy, you’re free to provide it.
And by the way: I’m still waiting on you to either prove your accusation that I have engaged in lying, or withdraw said accusation.
Chris that the new questions will improve accuracy isn’t the question. that is accuracy going forward. Changing he questions at this point means that data from past years cannot be compared to data collected going forward in an apples to apples comparison. This isn’t my opinion but it sure rings true to me.
I did not allege conspiracy in my post.
The census bureau may very well have been working for ten years to create better questions. For six of those years it has been working under the leadership of Barack Obama who upon election had the bureau moved from the commerce department to the White House. Tell me Chris, to what possible end would any President make such a change if not to exert more control and influence? Can’t wait to hear your response. I’m sure it will be as reasonable as hell.
Regardless your reasonable explanation changing the questions at this particular moment in time, in addition to all of the delays in implementation, will make it impossible to accurately compare data or determine the affect of the ACA on healthcare. In short Obama and his little helpers can make up all the positive stories they want.
You will have a long wait, Chris, I don’t intend on engaging with you much at all in future, about lying or any other subject, certainly not in the manner that I have previously done.
Just looked up the definition of “wasted time” and found Chris’s picture there. He gets this week’s Bloviator award.
Tina, yesterday: “Chris that the new questions will improve accuracy isn’t the question.”
Tina, earlier that day: “They have made sure the data will not be accurate”
Yeah, I can see why you no longer wish to engage with my arguments. That might actually require you to decide what your own arguments are first. Other than, you know, “Obama is bad and everything he does is bad.”
J. There’s a good chance he’s the all time bloviator on Post Scripts.
Can’t seem to discern the difference between accurate date year after year going forward and the dependency of data used to make comparisons pre and post Obamacare either.
While I might not have expressed the thought perfectly the meaning could have been cleared up with a simple question. If anyone else was confused by what I wrote please do ask me. I’d be more than happy to have a conversation about it.
Thanks J for affording me the opportunity to explain.
Tina: “Can’t seem to discern the difference between accurate date year after year going forward and the dependency of data used to make comparisons pre and post Obamacare either.”
I guess I misunderstood, but you’re still incorrect. As I already showed you, census years 2013 and 2014 will have the same question set, so the comparison for the year before and the after Obamacare’s massive expansion of coverage–arguably the most important comparison–will be made using the same measures.
There’s also the fact that there are other ways to measure coverage than just the Census numbers–if Republicans are concerned about the new Census questions leading to less accurate comparisons, nothing is stopping them from doing their own studies or relying on other already available measurements such as those done by Gallop.
“I did not allege conspiracy in my post.”
Perhaps we have different definitions of the word “conspiracy,” but you were clearly arguing that Obama was changing the questions due to some kind of sinister intent to mislead the American public. You still have not presented any evidence for this claim.
The Galen Institute lists 40 changes to the ACA since it was passed. The changes and delays began in April of 2011 and the latest was made April 1, 2014. There is no consistent data in this time frame. The roll out will continue though the end of this year. In December of last year it was also reported that the back end of the exchange, the part that deals with accounting, payment systems, and the delivery of federal subsidies had not been built. There are reports already of people who believe they paid their premiums have been denied service or received service only to discover they were not covered. The data will not be consistent or provide an accurate picture for some time.
Since a majority of Americans don’t like this law and a vast majority want it repealed it was fairly important that the people have a reliable method for determining the effects of the ACA. Th9s change, along with the delays and changes will ensure that it’s not possible.
After numerous deceptions and lies, one being named the “lie of the year”, anyone who doesn’t think this administration and the radicals in power in the Democrat Party don’t conspire together is either not paying attention or willfully blind.
As I originally posted the administration was involved in the changes as the new York Times reported:
After which Guy Benson at Hot Air observed, “This tectonic shift was requested and approved by the White House. OMB’s role in the process is especially interesting, given who Obama has nominated to succeed Kathleen Sebelius at HHS.”
Our readers can decide for themselves the degree to which Obama was personally involved but does it matter? As President he is either responsible for this or he is not and if not, then why is he president?