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NYT Busts Obama on Health Care Claims
President Obama told a group of people at a health care rally yesterday about a Treasury study that:
“found that nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next 10 years ... and that more than one-third will go without coverage for longer than one year.”
Fortunately the NYT was there to set the record straight:
"In fact, that is not precisely what the department found. ...... The survey found that 47.7 percent had lost coverage at some point during those 10 years for one month or more, and that 36 percent lacked coverage for at least one year during that time, though not necessarily 12 months consecutively. Mr. Obama extrapolated those statistics to predict what might happen in the future."
There you have it. Joe Wilson was right. President Obama was making extrapolations about the future based on the past. Next thing he'll be telling us that black is white and night is day. This is why we need an independent media.
--Dean Baker
COMMENTS (6)
Dean,
What problem do you have with the NYT pointing out that Obama claimed the study projected X whereas the study was actually historical? It the partisan shoe were on the other foot -- if, say, some Republican were claiming that historical numbers were a study's projections when you thought the future would be quite different than the past and that realizing this would favor your preferred policy, wouldn't you be quick to make such a correction yourself? Of course you would.
Ironically, you and Obama could have made a very plausible argument that the historical numbers underestimate the number of people who will be so affected in the next ten years under continuation of the status quo system.
Obama would have been better off -- not just in terms of accuracy, but rhetorically -- stating those figures and making the argument (perhaps armed with actual projections) that these numbers will get increasingly worse in the future.
Posted by: Brooks | September 14, 2009 1:58 PM
Didn't the study he referenced conclude in 2006? And hasn't loss of health care coverage worsened in the intervening 3 years?
So would it not make sense to assume the outdated figures he used are even more disturbing now?
It seems to me he understated the reality going forward rather than exaggerated. And one must consider that this was a speech to the nation rather than an economics lecture.
Posted by: Peg | September 14, 2009 6:22 PM
Peg,
Re: It seems to me he understated the reality going forward rather than exaggerated.
I agree (per my comment above).
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