Posted on 04/15/2014 8:43:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Changes to this year's census will make it difficult to assess how many people gained health insurance as a result of ObamaCare's first year of open enrollment, according to a report.
The reported overhaul of census questions on health insurance arrives as politicians, journalists and researchers await official data on how many people gained and lost coverage in the last year.
The changes are reportedly intended to improve the survey's accuracy. They will likely mark a "break in trend" for census health insurance data, making it hard to compared the 2014 report to past reports.
The revisions and their potential to obscure ObamaCare's impact on the insurance market were first reported Tuesday by The New York Times.
"We are expecting much lower numbers just because of the questions and how they are asked," Brett J. O’Hara, chief of the health statistics branch at the Census Bureau, told the paper.
A test of the revised questions last year produced lower estimates of the uninsured, according to an internal bureau document obtained by the Times.
So it will be difficult to assess whether lower numbers of uninsured in the next report, due out this fall, are because of survey changes or the healthcare law or both.
Supporters of the new survey said it would more accurately reflect changes in individual health insurance over the course of a year, including month-by-months shifts.
The new survey will also ask households whether they obtained health plans through an exchange, and whether that coverage is subsidized.
The old survey methodology had long been criticized by census officials and researchers, and changes were driven by technical experts, the Times reported.
At the same time, officials in the Obama administration requested some of the new questions, and the White House budget office ultimately approved the survey, the paper said.
Republicans were immediately suspicious of the changes. "How convenient," tweeted Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Wow. Convenient timing. Almost like it was intended.
The Obama government is a criminal enterprise.
And, where is responsibility for the Census lodged?
“Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”
Pretty much all we need to know about the new "improvement."
So I take it the number uninsured was overestimated all along?
In the age of computers, it seems to me that this type of information would be instantaneous.
Many of us volunteered and they were most often run from a church.
Additionally healthcare was given to people at no cost by many groups via the state. As in an entire year of it so they could be well enough to get a job. And I saw this happen in person.
A relatively low-cost but reasonable solution, too.
Oh yeah, and most of the sealevel rise due to global warming won’t show up until nearly the end of the 21st century. So don’t go looking for any of it now. Thanks Cincinatus’ Wife.
Since when were Americans required to provide health insurance data to the US census Bureau? Not this American, I can guarantee you that. Name and number of household occupants only.
As a professional, I laughed at that statement. Questions are asked with the same wording every time in order to track changes. The only reason for changing the wording during a possible transition in the area being measured is to hide the actual change. As is usual for FedGov, this is a blatant lie.
DC bureaucrats must stay awake until 3AM each day thinking up this stuff.
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