Critics Question Study Cited in Health Debate (FLAWED DATA USED TO JUSTIFLY OBAMACARE)

The New York Times ^ | 6/02/10 | REED ABELSON and GARDINER HARRIS

[GailA]

In selling the health care overhaul to Congress, the Obama administration cited a once obscure research group at Dartmouth College to claim that it could not only cut billions in wasteful health care spending but make people healthier by doing so.

Wasteful spending — perhaps $700 billion a year — “does nothing to improve patient health but subjects you and me to tests and procedures that aren’t necessary and are potentially harmful,” the president’s budget director, Peter Orszag, wrote in a blog post characteristic of the administration’s argument.

Mr. Orszag even displayed maps produced by Dartmouth researchers that appeared to show where the waste in the system could be found. Beige meant hospitals and regions that offered good, efficient care; chocolate meant bad and inefficient.

[GailA]

MORE FLAWED DATA USED TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA!

[GailA]

ping

[MEGoody]

MORE FLAWED DATA USED TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA!

Quite typical of Democrats/liberals.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

"The debate about the Dartmouth work is important because a growing number of health policy researchers are finding that overhauling the nation’s health care system will be far harder and more painful than the Dartmouth work has long suggested. Cuts, if not made carefully, could cost lives."

Epic Fail.

[I still care]

And the NY Times printed this?

Maybe somebody in their staff got sick. Kicking and screaming, liberals are slowly being dragged to the realization their beloved Obama is a screwup.

Reminds me of someone I knew that once ate a bowl of soup with soda in it because they didn’t want to admit they meant to pour the sode in their glass, not their soup bowl. All the time they ate it they kept talking about how good it was but their face told different.

[Flycatcher]

chocolate meant bad and inefficient.

This is flagrant anti-chocolatism!

Ping!

[uncommonsense]

"Cuts, if not made carefully, could [will] cost lives."

[caseinpoint]

Science is like statistics: one can find a scientific study to validate anything. While science itself is sometimes corrupted, it is usually the use of a study that skews the scientific argument toward one side or another.

Years ago I used to practically shout at “America’s Most Trusted Man” Watler Cronkite when he would give his inane signoff “And that’s the way it is this . . . “. The reason I hated it was because the news broadcast was no more a reflection of reality than any other individual’s perception. The problem wasn’t that the news wasn’t objective. It can’t be objective; it’s always a matter of the perception by the reporter of the news. The problem was the news industry claimed to be objective when it clearly wasn’t.

We now need to learn this lesson about science. Science can be just as manipulated as the news and it is up to the public to treat science as a matter of Caveat Emptor like we treat advertisements.

[Real Cynic No More]

MORE FLAWED DATA USED TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA!

obama giving direction to his subordinates: "Fire, aim, ready...."

[SMARTY]

Noooo??? Say honest??!!

[Don Corleone]

MORE FLAWED DATA USED TO PUSH A POLITICAL AGENDA!

<>P>

Alinsky plus Cloward-Pivin. A true double header.

[Joann37]

“And the NY Times printed this?...”

My thoughts exactly! Something must be going on; the rats are beginning to desert the ship.

[green iguana]

chocolate meant bad and inefficient

What a horrible slap at Nagin's fine city...

[kabar]

But if that system penalizes big city hospitals like those at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and NYU Langone Medical Center ; which look profligate by Dartmouth's measure but may rank much higher by other quality indicators — a battle over the validity of the Dartmouth work is almost certain in Congress.

A little parochialism.

[Incorrigible]

Peter Orszag lies like a rug.

[GailA]

Yes, the global warming garbage is a good lesson on believing science.

I once had the head of the TN Parole Board tell me he could make the repeat offender rate what ever he needed to by controlling WHO he released. They know who will be coming back and how soon, they release them any way.

[caseinpoint]

Another source of wisdom on the reliability of science is the deluge of “scientific” studies about health and nutrition. You can find studies that prove everything causes and cures cancer, everything causes and cures obesity, just to name two conditions.

[Qbert]

It would've been nice if the NYT looked into this before Obamacare was shoved down our throats.

[Upstate NY Guy]

chocolate meant bad and inefficient.

This is flagrant anti-chocolatism!

Hell, I'd say it is outright racism! The chart makes the insinuation that people of color are bad and inefficient workers. Obama should be ashamed of using this racist data to push his agenda.

[Cheerio]

Very hard to believe I am reading this from the NYSlimes, the printer of National Security Classified Information. Has the worm begun its turn?