Three cheers for Grayson!

[NOVA]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/18/hot-button-33533689//print/

'Junk science'

Steven Milloy's "junk science" detector began running high when he got a hold of a new study appearing in the American Journal of Public Health that claims nearly 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance.

According to the study, titled "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts.

Mr. Milloy, founder and publisher of Junkscience.com and co-founder and portfolio manager for the Free Enterprise Action Fund, said the study was created to boost President Obama's health care agenda. Mr. Milloy noted that Mr. Obama said during the joint session of Congress on health care reform last week that people would die if they didn't have health insurance.

"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing," Mr. Obama said in his Sept. 9 address. "Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true."

Mr. Milloy thinks the study will give Mr. Obama more specific numbers to use in order to ramp up public support for his plan.

"They are trying to create these factoids that they can beat opponents over the head with," Mr. Milloy said. "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."

"That kind of stuff is classic junk science," Mr. Milloy added.

John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), agreed the study was flawed.

"The subjects were interviewed only once and the study tries to link their insurance status at that time to mortality a decade later. Yet over the period, the authors have no idea whether subjects were insured or uninsured, what kind of medical care they received, or even cause of death," he said in a statement.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Yeah, sure...heres the folks that did the "research"\

Physicians for a National Health Program

(From their website)

PNHP is at the forefront of research and action for a single-payer national health program.

Our Mission: Single-Payer National Health Insurance

At least they don't try to hide the fact that they are left-wing hacks

http://www.pnhp.org/
---------------------------------------------
And you have the freekin' gall to pass this bunch of loons...LOONS WITH AN ADMITTED AGENDA, as some one we should believe at face value.......
To call it junk science would be too kind.....

This only proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not only are you somewhat stupid, but incredibly gullible too....
Thats one hell of a combination to be burdened with....

and you imagine the rest of us might buy this crap as you do..?

When you see Obama give a speech, surrounded by a group of medical personal, you can bet they all got invited because they belong to this bunch.....

I'd bet you're a man-made global warming pinhead too, right!

Okay, folks....here's where I thoroughly humiliate our intellecutally impotent neocon parrot here as he squawks loudly and proudly.

An excerpt from the article I sourced. I'll highlight the parts this clown couldn't comprehend.

The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance.

The PNHP did NOT do the study themselves. Harvard Medical School Researchers did that. Add to this the other excerpts I sited earlier, and one realizes that all the neocon bravado is based on the usual neocon myopia. That the PNHP has information from a prestigious (and hardly "leftie") institution of learning that supports their cause is just too much for his tiny brain to handle....as the slobbering rant above demonstrates.

As usual, the neocon parrot just gets it all ass backwards. Whether he does this as intentional distortion or honest ignorance doesn't bode well for him either way. "Bravo" indeed.

 

[Timshel]

"....Some critics called the study flawed.

The National Center for Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank that backs a free-market approach to health care, said researchers overstated the death risk and did not track how long subjects were uninsured.

Woolhandler said that while Physicians for a National Health Program supports government-backed coverage, the Harvard study's six researchers closely followed the methodology used in the 1993 study conducted by researchers in the federal government as well as the University of Rochester in New York.

The Harvard researchers analyzed data on about 9,000 patients tracked by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics through the year 2000. They excluded older Americans because those aged 65 or older are covered by the U.S. Medicare insurance program.

"For any doctor ... it's completely a no-brainer that people who can't get health care are going to die more from the kinds of things that health care is supposed to prevent," said Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts."

Try again.

Okay, I gave the exact number, 9004, they said about 9000? Is that the difference?

Maybe you are referring to the fact that they said they followed the methodology of the 1993 study. But where does it say that the 1993 study's methodology contradicts what I said?

I've read this same article, carefully 3 times. You can ask your fellows on board, I tend to read carefully and I am willing to admit to mistakes. I just don't see what in this article shows that I have made any.

 

[belme1201]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/18/hot-button-33533689//print/

'Junk science'

Steven Milloy's "junk science" detector began running high when he got a hold of a new study appearing in the American Journal of Public Health that claims nearly 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance.

According to the study, titled "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts.

Mr. Milloy, founder and publisher of Junkscience.com and co-founder and portfolio manager for the Free Enterprise Action Fund, said the study was created to boost President Obama's health care agenda. Mr. Milloy noted that Mr. Obama said during the joint session of Congress on health care reform last week that people would die if they didn't have health insurance.

"Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing," Mr. Obama said in his Sept. 9 address. "Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true."

Mr. Milloy thinks the study will give Mr. Obama more specific numbers to use in order to ramp up public support for his plan.

"They are trying to create these factoids that they can beat opponents over the head with," Mr. Milloy said. "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."

"That kind of stuff is classic junk science," Mr. Milloy added.

John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), agreed the study was flawed.

"The subjects were interviewed only once and the study tries to link their insurance status at that time to mortality a decade later. Yet over the period, the authors have no idea whether subjects were insured or uninsured, what kind of medical care they received, or even cause of death," he said in a statement.

Of course the "Free Enterprise Action Fund" is a down the line purveyor of truth with no agenda, along with the Mooney Times. The GOP status quo plan is murder pure and simple. The truth scares the piss out of Milloy and all others of his ilk like the GOP and their dupes.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Try again.

Okay, I gave the exact number, 9004, they said about 9000? Is that the difference? The difference is what is said afterward...something you left out in your analysis...along with the other information used for the the study.

Maybe you are referring to the fact that they said they followed the methodology of the 1993 study. But where does it say that the 1993 study's methodology contradicts what I said? Where does it say that it didn't? Essentially you are trying to promote your suppostion as plausible fact...


I've read this same article, carefully 3 times. You can ask your fellows on board, I tend to read carefully and I am willing to admit to mistakes. I just don't see what in this article shows that I have made any.

Go back, read your supposition, and remember what resources were used as listed by the article and how.

 

[Timshel]

Okay, folks....here's where I thoroughly humiliate our intellecutally impotent neocon parrot here as he squawks loudly and proudly.

An excerpt from the article I sourced. I'll highlight the parts this clown couldn't comprehend.

The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance.

The PNHP did NOT do the study themselves. Harvard Medical School Researchers did that.

Lead by Himmelstein, co founder of the PNHP.

Add to this the other excerpts I sited earlier, and one realizes that all the neocon bravado is based on the usual neocon myopia. That the PNHP has information from a prestigious (and hardly "leftie") institution of learning that supports their cause is just too much for his tiny brain to handle....as the slobbering rant above demonstrates.

Oh so we are supposed to believe that is valid because Himmelstein is from Harvard. Sorry, I don't fucking care. Bad science is bad science.

And as far as the American Journal of Public Health... I read skeptic magazines often, The Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic magazine. Many articles that appear in the AJPH end up being debunked junk science.

The AJPH is only a little better than mainstream media when it comes to science reporting. And then, only because it is peer reviewed, though they rarely retract the bs they publish and instead let it be torn apart in letters and other published studies. But you have to give it some time to be peer reviewed.

 

[Timshel]

Go back, read your supposition, and remember what resources were used as listed by the article and how.

Your color responses are annoying. BBcode is pretty simple. Put the end quote, bracketed /quote, at the end of the part you want to comment on and a beginning bracketed quote, no slash, at the beginning of the next part you want comment on.

What did I leave out? I quoted your entire post and labored to find your best argument. I am not searching any further for your point. Make it yourself or stfu.

Where does it say that they did not use bad methodology? Where does it say they used good methodology? It does not. Either you can contradict my statements on their methods or you can't. All you do is point to some other study, which does not disprove the criticisms I laid out.

Please, offer something of substance or don't bother wasting any more of my time.

 

[Timshel]

Of course the "Free Enterprise Action Fund" is a down the line purveyor of truth with no agenda, along with the Mooney Times. The GOP status quo plan is murder pure and simple. The truth scares the piss out of Milloy and all others of his ilk like the GOP and their dupes.

So if we are only going to do ad homs on the messenger, then we can completely ignore the study quoted by Grayson, since it was produced by someone with a clear agenda.

I don't care about Milloy's agenda any more than I care about Himmelstein's. Everybody has an agenda/bias and there statements should be viewed skeptically.

Are the methods/criticism valid? That is all that matters. On this thread, I have yet to see anyone contradict the criticism of the methods used.

 

[USFREEDOM911]

Try again.

Okay, I gave the exact number, 9004, they said about 9000? Is that the difference?

Maybe you are referring to the fact that they said they followed the methodology of the 1993 study. But where does it say that the 1993 study's methodology contradicts what I said?

I've read this same article, carefully 3 times. You can ask your fellows on board, I tend to read carefully and I am willing to admit to mistakes. I just don't see what in this article shows that I have made any.

It's not you, RS.
It's him.
This is the way that he "debates".
He knows you bested him, he knows your bested him, and he knows you know that you bested hm.
HIs miniscule cognitive ability, won't let him admit that he's a total fuck up.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

The GOP status quo plan is murder pure and simple.

???...there is no GOP "status quo" plan.....to solve the problem you and Greyson are complaining about requires a one sentence bill....."No insurance company may refuse or cancel an insured based upon an existing medical condition".....the other 1000 pages are fluff.....propose that bill and it would pass unanimously......

 

[belme1201]

So if we are only going to do ad homs on the messenger, then we can completely ignore the study quoted by Grayson, since it was produced by someone with a clear agenda.

I don't care about Milloy's agenda any more than I care about Himmelstein's. Everybody has an agenda/bias and there statements should be viewed skeptically.

Are the methods/criticism valid? That is all that matters. On this thread, I have yet to see anyone contradict the criticism of the methods used.

I was merely replying to a post trying to purvey a position in agreement with his own as unbiased and without an agenda while branding an opposing position coming from a source, not in agreement with him, as automatically having an agenda. All I attempted to do was point out the hypocrisy.
However, I must admit I would usually give more weight to a Harvard based source than one put forth by a for-profit investment company. That's just me.
That said, very little has been said about an article from the 9/23/09 NE Journal of Medicine which, while not echoing the numbers of the Harvard findings, reaches similar conclusions regarding the delivery of the system we now have. They are another source which I would usually have more confidence than a for profit, politically inclined, source.

 

[TuTu Monroe]

???...there is no GOP "status quo" plan.....to solve the problem you and Greyson are complaining about requires a one sentence bill....."No insurance company may refuse or cancel an insured based upon an existing medical condition".....the other 1000 pages are fluff.....propose that bill and it would pass unanimously......

It's realy a no-brainer. Even the left should be able to understand it.

 

[belme1201]

???...there is no GOP "status quo" plan.....to solve the problem you and Greyson are complaining about requires a one sentence bill....."No insurance company may refuse or cancel an insured based upon an existing medical condition".....the other 1000 pages are fluff.....propose that bill and it would pass unanimously......

Exactly. There is no GOP status quo plan, however, there is no plan they will support which will change the current system if private sector profits are affected. They will "just say no".
Your sentence, while a necessary reform increment, contains nothing about the provision of adequate insurance to the uninsured. There are millions, with or without pre-existing conditions, that simply cannot afford health insurance under the current system in this country, unlike all other First World countries.

Here is my one sentence as an alternative. "Every US citizen is hereby entitled to enroll into his/her choice of either Medicare or the Government Employee Healthcare System, pre-existing conditions may not be considered in determining eligibility."
How's that for simplicity? Medicaid would no longer be necessary. Will the GOP sign on?

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Here is my one sentence as an alternative. "Every US citizen is hereby entitled to enroll into his/her choice of either Medicare or the Government Employee Healthcare System, pre-existing conditions may not be considered for determining eligibility."
How's that for simplicity? Medicaid would no longer be necessary. Will the GOP sign on?

Question: when you say every citizen may enroll you say nothing about who is going to pay for the enrollment.....thus, your proposal also does nothing to provide health insurance for the uninsured......fix that oversight and I will decide if I will sign on......

 

[NOVA]

Okay, folks....here's where I thoroughly humiliate our intellecutally impotent neocon parrot here as he squawks loudly and proudly.

An excerpt from the article I sourced. I'll highlight the parts this clown couldn't comprehend.

The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or "single-payer" health insurance.

The PNHP did NOT do the study themselves. Harvard Medical School Researchers did that. Add to this the other excerpts I sited earlier, and one realizes that all the neocon bravado is based on the usual neocon myopia. That the PNHP has information from a prestigious (and hardly "leftie") institution of learning that supports their cause is just too much for his tiny brain to handle....as the slobbering rant above demonstrates.

As usual, the neocon parrot just gets it all ass backwards. Whether he does this as intentional distortion or honest ignorance doesn't bode well for him either way. "Bravo" indeed.

Are you really that uncomprehending of what you read?

Study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler .......etc....
Dr. Steffie Woolhandler was on the Presidential Candidates & Single-Payer in the 2008 Elections

Steffie Woolhandler is a principal author of PNHP articles published in the JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, co-founder of Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP), a group of over 15,000 physicians nationwide who support a single-payer health care system, spoke on June 26 in Chicago at the PNHP offices. She spoke about the presidential candidates’ health plans and single-payer in the 2008 elections. She is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School researcher? You bet, she works there....
Does that make a difference? Not in the slightest...

These "researchers" are left wingers that support Obamas healthcare agenda and OF COURSE will invent stats. to bolster that position....and only the truely gullible, koolade guzzeling hacks, like yourself buy the junk science without question......

Your remind me the pinheads that shout, "If you don't believe me, just ask me".......

 

[Timshel]

I was merely replying to a post trying to purvey a position in agreement with his own as unbiased and without an agenda while branding an opposing position coming from a source, not in agreement with him, as automatically having an agenda. All I attempted to do was point out the hypocrisy.
However, I must admit I would usually give more weight to a Harvard based source than one put forth by a for-profit investment company. That's just me.
That said, very little has been said about an article from the 9/23/09 NE Journal of Medicine which, while not echoing the numbers of the Harvard findings, reaches similar conclusions regarding the delivery of the system we now have. They are another source which I would usually have more confidence than a for profit, politically inclined, source.

To which article are you referring? I don't find one that is related.

http://content.nejm.org/content/vol361/issue14/index.dtl

 

[belme1201]

Question: when you say every citizen may enroll you say nothing about who is going to pay for the enrollment.....thus, your proposal also does nothing to provide health insurance for the uninsured......fix that oversight and I will decide if I will sign on......

What happened to the first two paragraphs you, apparently have edited out? Your "sentence" gives no cost considerations, but you hold me to a higher standard, and because you failed to address those without insurance, I will re-iterate that the GOP plan you advocate IS the status quo accepting no healthcare for tens of millions. Thus the extrapolation that thousands of people should be allowed to die for cost/profit considerations alone.

 

[belme1201]

To which article are you referring? I don't find one that is related.

http://content.nejm.org/content/vol361/issue14/index.dtl

Your link is the 10/1 addition. There are 2 articles in the 9/23 addition, I would additionally like to point out a 9/14 Journal survey of physicians showing 63% support a public/private healthcare system, taken from a very large sampling. Your guys have wisely chosen to ignore it, my guys, stupidly, have done the same.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

What happened to the first two paragraphs you, apparently have edited out? Your "sentence" gives no cost considerations, but you hold me to a higher standard, and because you failed to address those without insurance, I will re-iterate that the GOP plan you advocate IS the status quo accepting no healthcare for tens of millions. Thus the extrapolation that thousands of people should be allowed to die for cost/profit considerations alone.

silly liberal....you complained that my plan didn't address the uninsured....I simply pointed out that yours didn't either......if my plan is the status quo, so is yours.....

 

[belme1201]

silly liberal....you complained that my plan didn't address the uninsured....I simply pointed out that yours didn't either......if my plan is the status quo, so is yours.....

It is clear that "Every US citizen" would include the uninsured. I then included pre-existing conditions in the same sentence. I reiterate, the bent toward the status quo is obviously yours alone since you also did not address cost. What is the cost consideration for thousands dying? How about a start by cutting Iraq funding by half and using that half for health care? That's just for starters. I can think of others based on ability to pay.