Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Where are the Actuaries in the Healthcare Controversy?

I started out the day intending to write my blog on Facts and Assumptions regarding a problem defined as “…determining the best way to provide health care to uninsured voters.” I decided to Google Facts, Healthcare. I’m embarrassed to tell you that while there were many articles that claimed to be based upon facts they seemed instead to be based on findings from questionable or ambiguous sources. For example one quoted the UN’s World Health Organization, and a finding that showed the United States ranked in the high twenties as a health care provider. A closer look at the study showed it was based upon a request, sent to the member nations to provide information and statistics. It was at best a “science” right up there with the analysis that went into “proving” Global Warming. Yet, the results were posted as facts by the author.

I’m sorry, but this is yet another example of Liberals playing fast and loose with the numbers. Old Money comes up with some outcomes they want to promote (Healthcare/Global Warming) and seed grants to those who can provide papers that support the findings they’re looking for. Intellectuals and scholars take their money and tell the Neo Socialists what they want to hear. I spent two hours reading a dozen articles and I found more eloquence than anything else. Sound familiar? I suppose some ink written on a piece of paper is factual in a sense. However, just because a finding claims to be based upon some serious scholarship does not make it a fact. A finding is a finding. The statement that the United States of America is ranked twenty-seventh in the world as a health care provider is factual only to the extent that the claim is made in a published document. It does not become a fact simply because somebody took some grant money after getting "The Secret Handshake."

Any claim that the United States is twenty-seventh as a world healthcare provider must at the very least pass the common sense or reasonableness test. How does this “fact” explain why those who can afford the best, flock to our shores to get treated?

Anyway I started with one fact and one assumption that I'm pretty sure about. The fact is that everybody on this planet is going to die sooner or later, and the assumption is that at one time or another most of us are going to be faced with an accident or illness. Beyond this it seems that getting to the facts is going to require the services of an actuary. A good starting point I suppose is a quick review of how the Insurance Companies came to be and how they determine who is going to get sick, how long it takes to die (or get cured) and what the costs are associated with a visit to the hospital. With this process, at least, in mind a reader is better equipped to consider health care from a dispassionate point of view.

This is hugely important because literally everybody in today’s world understands the importance of healthcare and is carrying a unique set of expectations and experiences they are personally familiar with. So when are the Actuaries going to weigh in with some credible facts and assumptions?