Friday, February 14, 2014

Statistical contrariness.

Good day to you all on this slightly warmer Friday.  We got a dusting of snow late yesterday--not enough to do anything about.  Let's see what I find to comment on.

Watching the Al Jazeera news this morning and saw a mind-blowing picture.  Parts of southwestern England are flooded and they showed swans swimming down the flooded streets of one of the waterlogged towns.  It looks like 2014 will be another real strange weather year.

I tried to get onto an article on Yves Smith's blog, Naked Capitalism, so I could link to one of her posts but evidently it is down at this moment.  The article concerned the numbers being reported for the ACA sign-up and calls into question the government figures.  As usual, I am not surprised.  I take all government issued statistics.  The old saying on that is "lies, damned lies, statistics, and government statistics."  Yves cites a New York Times article which raises some interesting questions. The latest figures claim that 3.3 million people have signed up for insurance under the ACA.  But the figures don't indicate how many were uninsured or how many had insurance but signed up for lower cost plans under the ACA or how many had been pushed out of plans because the insurance company raised the cost or cancelled outright.  We had been sold this program on the grounds that people who were shut out of the insurance market because of cost but the numbers really don't give us any indication of how many of the uninsured actually have been signing up.  And then there is the stat which indicates that one-fifth of those who sign up fail to pay even the first payment.  That is a bit of an indication that the Affordable Care Act is, perhaps, not so affordable.

I agree, Kay.  Avoid Wal-Mart when ever possible.

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