Political Discussions
Obamanomics, Dishonest or merely Math Moron?
Posted by csiunatc • 3/07/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: obamanomics.
Anyone who has paid attention to the news recently have heard President Obama mention that someone declares bankruptcy because of medical bills every 30 seconds. www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5glbNuOfBwACjypTPphjyWZlVthGwD96O...
As always, politicians need to be taken with a grain of salt, (or half a ton, whichever comes first.)
But this one is fairly simple to check the math on.
The National Coalition on Healthcare,(1) who list the exact same claim of 30 seconds, and have a very similar agenda to Pres. Obama. list a Harvard research article on their webpage to support this claim. (2)
The article they reference, states that “the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses”
According to U.S. Courts, there were 871,186 non-business filings in the 12 month period ending June 2008 (3), which are the most recent statistics released.
So now we just crunch the numbers.
Using the NCHC cited Harvard article attributing 50% of bankruptcies to healthcare costs, this would mean that 435,593 bankruptcies were partially due to health care costs.
There are 31,556,926 seconds in a year, which then leads to the following calculation.
31,556,926 / 435,993 = one health care cost related bankruptcy every 72 seconds. That’s an exaggeration of 240%
For Obama’s claim to be true, assuming that the boys at Harvard did their research we would have to have 2,103,795 total bankruptcies in the US. Out of which 1,051,897 would be medical cost related.
There weren’t even that many filed all in all last fiscal year in total.
Maybe Geitner used the same calculator he did his taxes with? Or maybe truth isn’t the Comrade in Chief’s main concern.
Getting the math 240% off target doesn't invoke confidense.
Impeachment - The Change we can Hope for.
(1) www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
(2)Himmelstein, D, E. Warren, D. Thorne, and S. Woolhander, “Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy, “ Health Affairs Web Exclusive W5-63, 02 February , 2005.
(3)www.uscourts.gov/bnkrpctystats/statistics.htm#june
User Comments
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There might have been more medical caused bankruptcies declared the year the statement was originally made.
In any case - a medical bankruptcy filed every minute or so is still a LOT.-
1. They attribute them PARTLY to medical costs. They aren't neccesarily even the main reason. Considering that they make up 1/2, of all bankruptcies. It's safe to assume that these medical ones probably aren't all debt free besides the medical bills.
2. If every 72 secods is a lot, why is he coming up with fake numbers that more than double that?
3. If X/Second is reason to act on anything, why isn't he getting tough on for instance crime? Crime costs more than these bankruptcies, and is a hell of a lot more frequent than the bankruptcies are.
Edited to add:
Your first point. The year the statement was made, doesn't jive either.
Obama said that {the soarding cost) ""now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds."
Now causes... not some "year originally" and even so, if the number is going down, then apparently Bush did something right on that front.. -
Don't forget that bankruptcy laws changed dramatically, making it harder to file. That's not really doing something "right" as much as it is just changing the numbers around. So instead of bankruptcies every thirty seconds, you have one every 72 seconds, and a default every 30 seconds
But of course bankruptcies aren't all medical costs. It's the medical costs that prevents the people from meeting normal debt obligations. The straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. -
Or being a moron with a 900 dollar medical bill and a 60inch plasma tv on 29% creditcard.
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Well, that's not actually the case. Most people who file bankruptcy for medical reasons are facing terminal or chronic illnesses, have lost an income if not two (needing to stay at home and care for the ill person) accrued costs due to rehabilitation, long term hospice care etc..
When you have normal debt obligations such as a mortgage, utilities, and maybe some credit card debt that would otherwise be manageable - and hit a medical catastrophe you're not going to make it.
My previous boss (and long time friend of the family) was in a car accident that left him in a coma, and then paralyzed after that. Had they not had the assets they had to sell (businesses, properties) they too would have been up poo creek.
When my grandmothers became ill (terminal cancer - and general old age illnesses) they required nursing home hospice care. It was wildly expensive, their insurance wasn't covering it, my mother was paying out of pocket - and we lost our house and had to file for bankruptcy.
It's really not a case of stupidity. -
generally, there is a combination of things that send people over the edge. Often medical and job loss combined. Their is surely a lot of bad decision making as well. That would be expected in an economy that is based largely on people being willing to purchase things that they don't need, and in aggregate cannot afford. -
Thats not actually the case????
You now know the facts behind every BR case? Interesting.
Of course not every case is any which way. But i know of more people that have screwed themselves through bad decisions than I do medical BR cases. -
I would dare say most people are not going to file bankruptcy over a $1000 medical bill. You can make payments on a bill that small. And, quite frankly, most serious medical bills are far more expensive than that. My husband's medical bills from when he was hit by a car are int the thousands, and he didn't even require a hospital stay, or hospice care or anything like that.
For serious injuries and long term illnesses, the debt can be enormous. Some people have accrued medical bills up to $20k or more just for a surgery and hospital stay. Never mind long term care, rehabilitation, or hospice, medications, etc...
Lots of people sell their homes before filing, and that's still not enough. -
that's what "experts" say. Most involve two out of three things. Health, Job loss, or Divorce. I forgot the third one before. These "experts" may have an agenda, but thats what they SAY. The problems here have been both overly simplified (by those who want to blame someone else) and overly muddled by those who don't want to admit that the system is inherently flawed. These banking giants suffer from a lack of connection between the interest of ownership and the interest of management, and as such they defy the natural rules that make markets work. In my oppinion the group that deserves the brunt of the blame is the corporate boards who have allowed for compensation packages that makes Isaiah Thomas look like a genius.
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I'm not sure that qualifies under the heading "obamanomics." Thus far the Obama administration has done nothing (despite campaign promises) to change bankruptcy laws or to alleviate the now (under 2004 Bankruptcy reform) massive cost of hiring a bankruptcy attourney. The reason of course seems obvious--that doing so would likely make the financial sector increasingly insolvent.
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I don't think anything qualifies as Obama economics, UNless it's Anti economics.. seems he does everything bass ackwards.
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If he exaggerates statistics by 240%, he really must not have any clue about what he is talking about. -
I have noticed that our new treasury secretary is having a hard time putting together a department. Any thoughts on why?
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I don't think Obama knows what direction we want to go. He wants to spend billions and conserve billions tons of money at the same time.
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He's finding that Wall Street is not as easy to demagogue to. His promise to cut deficits seems to have fallen on deaf ears there.
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Obama's calls to cut the deficit fall on deaf ears because no one believes him. He just spent more money in a month than Bush did in 8 years and doubled the deficit. It does not seem to register with people (me included) on how he is going to manage to cut the deficit in half in two years. Seems like an empty promise to me. Also, Obama is trying to fix the wrong problems at the moment. Yes we need to bring down health care costs, I will not argue that. But they are not paralyzing the economy as much as Obama says they are. He is simply using this time to push his agenda through without focusing on the real problems like banking and homes. Focus on this first, then worry about health care.
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A moron? I don't think so. Dishonest, as a successful American politician, very likely.
However, the point he was making is a good one (I don't know the full context and I don't trust Obama anyway). No other industrialized, developed nation comes close in the percentage of it's citizens sent over the edge due to healthcare costs.
I'm usually not big on anecdotal evidence but here's one example. The elderly man who used to live downstairs from me when I was a kid. I bonded with him as he was very nice and helpful. He lived in a very small one-room studio apt. Well he was a real hard-working, get up before dawn type of guy. Worked construction and built homes. He kept a picture of his deceased wife. Turns out sometime in their late 50's she became very ill and during the course of treatment, they had to sell their nice little home with the picket fence, sell the car and move to a small studio apt. She died shortly after anyway. He never declared bankruptcy but was cleaned out nonetheless. He worked hard and was never unemployed since he was 17 but by the time he was in his 60's he was flat broke.
To show how well our propaganda system works, Even with all this, I never heard him question the system. He even voted for Reagan. -
Health care costs are so high due to dirt bag ambulance chasers like John Edwards. Doctors are so afraid of getting sued that they have to raise prices. I blame the lawyers.
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Not only should we be blaming the dirt bag ambulance chasing lawyers like Edwards, but also the insurance companies for charging astronomical mal-practice fees. And those are the cheap fees for the doctors who have never been to court because of "emotional distress". Some states are starting to have shortages of doctors (like Pennsylvania) because the doctors either do not want to pay the mal-practice insurance or cannot afford it.
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I'm with you on the dirt bad ambulance chasers and insurance companies, but that's neither a Republican or Democratic issue. It's an issue of greed which also helped get us into the economic turmoil we're in now. -
Here's something nice. IA Sen. Bruce Braley, a lawyer prior, used to host seminars on how to sue doctors for malpractice and various other things.
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I'd much rather see something more like the Japanese system than Obama's Bushist corporatist subsidiy plan.
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Every 30 seconds! We need to make our bankruptcy laws stricter! lol
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A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses.9 Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.
www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml-
Citing Harvard research... HOW DARE HE!
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I think we need to find out who that person is that files every 30 seconds and make him or her stop.
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Rather than denying that health care costs are a problem, I'd rather debate the relatve merit of Obama's solution, and other possible solutions.
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Rather a boorish false choice being posed in the OP.
*sigh*-
At least he didn't say "Abort"!
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Well it is a lot of work to find the facts. You have to go to the search page and type in some keywords... And then read a little bit of "information"...
It's easier just to latch onto an opinion and then employ some twisted logic to justify it. -
Opinions are the same as information now. I saw that on Fox and Friends.
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Twisted logic.. Like basic math? lol
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