Statistics

Just something quick, just to break the ice from this long stalemate from writing. I heard on the news this morning the following statistic, that the baby boomers are starting to come of age for Medicare benefits this year, to the tune of approximately 10,000 a day. This is a staggering, breathtaking statistic, designed to make everyone in the audience gasp a little and say, "Oh no!" What irritates and aggravates me (seems that's getting easier and easier to do), is the lack of the "rest of the story" (apologies to Paul Harvey) this statistic provides. The other logical side, of course, maybe a little morbid, is how many people on Medicare are dying every day and thus leaving the program? In other words, what is the real net increase, if there is one, and why doesn't this particular news source, who claims to be neutral and unbiased, also provide this information as well as the more inflammatory and unfinished remark?

I once had a great Journalism teacher who taught us how statistics can be used to provide justification for nearly everything, including points that are total opposites to each other. I don't remember the statistic she used, but she took one and managed to derive about ten interesting and at times, totally opposite results from the same number. (Many teachings from my old journalism school really did set with me, such as this one, and such as the one my old copy reading and editing teacher admonished, to "always consider the source!"). I had an interesting time with this when I used to work at a hospital who was fined over a million dollars in bogus Medicare charges due to its incorrect coding for pneumonia patients. As a result the respiratory therapists were charged with the duty of obtaining sputum cultures within 4 hours of admission for every patient admitted with the diagnosis of pneumonia, and when that number, on paper, was not reached, we were skewered, splayed and flayed before the administration for our laziness. The reality of the situation was much different and the percentage results were variant on many factors, many of which were totally out of our control, including a basic one -- that we were rarely informed of the admittance of a pneumonia patient within the 4 hour time span, leaving us very little time to do our protocol, which was itself a 3 hour procedure. I became so angered at receiving the rancorous phone calls from the infection control nurse and the administration that on one occasion I took the infection control nurse's statistic and ripped it apart about ten different ways. It didn't stop her from calling our department, but when she got me on the phone, she simply told me to tell my boss to call her.

My journalism teacher simply taught us, statistics can be manipulated to mean anything you want them to. My constant and persistent complaint, ad nauseam, is how difficult it is to find good, well-balanced news sources anymore who are willing to take even this simple little concept into consideration much less any of the rest of the plethora of factors that separate a fair and unbiased story from propaganda.

For instance, without getting into a huge Journalism 101 explanation, the very decision regarding what to print can dictate the bias of a news organization. Take in point a story written by the Associated Press about the Hawaii governor's resistance in releasing Obama's birth certificate, that, although written by the AP, considered fairly neutral and unbiased, was only published on Worldnews.net, a decidedly biased news media. Does the fact that thiis commonly respected AP story was published on a decidedly biased news media somehow stain the story? No. The bigger question, I'm asking, is why this story wasn't picked up and published on the supposedly respected mainstream media?

If you comment on this post wanting to argue with me about whether or not I'm a birther and all the other crap, don't bother. You're totally missing the extremely simple, elementary point. In the last dialogue not one person actually addressed that point, the exact same one the great bastion of liberalism Chris Matthews also asked regarding Obama's birth certificate, "Why doesn't he just show it?" Unlikely as it usually is, I agree with Matthews on this one, who wants to put all the diatribe and excuses aside, and simply wants to know the answer to this very important question.