The horrors of socialized medicine.

[boyando]

Perhaps you should leave the interpretation of statistical data to people who understand statistics then. Your interpretation is a wild extrapolation with very little basis in the original study.

Coincidentally, children who live on farms do get fewer colds than children in urban areas, most likely because they are exposed to fewer children. The corollary to that is that if all children lived on farms, ie, had less exposure to other children, then they would get fewer colds. But that has nothing to do with this article, which is sound in it's statistical design and execution.

You should get angry at the educational institution who failed to teach you how to intelligibly interpret research. That's who really failed you here. There's nothing wrong with this article and it is consistent with everything we've known in medicine for a long time. Uninsured children die more often in hospitals than insured children because uninsured patients wait longer to come to the hospital than insured patients.

The conclusion is actually pretty accurate. People who are insured are more likely to seek medical attention earlier in their illnesses because they don't have to worry about paying for it.

Also, I might add, before you go knocking articles that appear in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, you might want to consider what it means to be peer-reviewed. It usually means that it's been through a gauntlet of criticism from multiple people that know more about the subject than you do.

Before you tie me to the stake, light the fire and do your little gotcha dance, may I point out that the article itself, points out that research was not done as to why there are more deaths with the uninsured, but added conjecture as fact.

I am also a neophyte to animal husbandry, but still know enough to step around a cowpie. So maybe it is like one of the General Authorities once said, sometimes, PHD does mean piled deeper and higher.

[Elphaba]

Before you tie me to the stake, light the fire and do your little gotcha dance, may I point out that the article itself, points out that research was not done as to why there are more deaths with the uninsured, but added conjecture as fact.

I am also a neophyte to animal husbandry, but still know enough to step around a cowpie. So maybe it is like one of the General Authorities once said, sometimes, PHD does mean piled deeper and higher.

Breathe, dear brother, breathe!

MOE is a professional statistician. He is not simply describing the validity of the study because it fits, or does not fit, his personal ideaology. He really does know what he's talking about.

Additionally, the study was published in one of the most prestigous journals in the world, and as MOE explained, there are numerous processes in place to ensure a bad study does not get accepted for publication. If not for the guidelines in place to catch faulty data, no journal would be able to maintain its credibility. I've been involved in this process twice and I assure you it is painstaking.

Your disdain for a Ph.D. aside, your dismissal of one of the most thorough studies I've ever seen is unwarranted. You accuse the article's authors of reaching a preconceived conclusion based on their bias, yet don't seem to realize you're doing the same.

The Journal of Public Health is one of the most reputable, and credible, publications you will find on the planet. One general authority's contempt for a Ph.D. does not negate that fact.

Nor does your knowledge of what a cowpie is, which is not something you learned because you dedicated years to studying one. Rather, it's because of your sense of smell, with no need of study on your part whatsoever.

That's not to say everyone with a Ph.D. is well-educated. I have known a few really ignorant human beings who attained their Ph.D. But it's incorrect to compare it to your being well-educated in cowpies. If you have a nose, you know what it is.

Love ya,

Sis