Health Reform: The Obama
administration says more than 16 million have gained insurance, thanks
to ObamaCare. But a closer look at the numbers shows they're once again
playing fast and loose with the data.
A two-page report from the Dept. of Health and Human Services claims the uninsured rate fell from 20.3% to 13.2% since ObamaCare began.
Officials there cheered this news, with one saying that "nothing since the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid has come close to this kind of change."
It's not what it seems. To get to its 16 million number, HHS uses Gallup poll data — not the Census Bureau's far more comprehensive survey — for its calculations.
Gallup does show a drop in the uninsured rate. Although its numbers differ from the administration's, it finds that the rate dropped from around 17% in 2013, where it had been since 2011, to 12.9% in Q4 2014.
Whatever numbers are used, the administration conveniently overlooks the fact that those years of high uninsured rates were also when the economy was in the middle of Obama's jobless recovery.
A two-page report from the Dept. of Health and Human Services claims the uninsured rate fell from 20.3% to 13.2% since ObamaCare began.
Officials there cheered this news, with one saying that "nothing since the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid has come close to this kind of change."
It's not what it seems. To get to its 16 million number, HHS uses Gallup poll data — not the Census Bureau's far more comprehensive survey — for its calculations.
Gallup does show a drop in the uninsured rate. Although its numbers differ from the administration's, it finds that the rate dropped from around 17% in 2013, where it had been since 2011, to 12.9% in Q4 2014.
Whatever numbers are used, the administration conveniently overlooks the fact that those years of high uninsured rates were also when the economy was in the middle of Obama's jobless recovery.
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