More Funny Numbers from the Obama Administration

Dennis Smith / December 01, 2009

Confronted by discrepancies in the number of jobs created by the stimulus bill, officials in the Obama Administration eventually were forced to concede that their numbers could not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the lesson appears to have been lost on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in its exuberance to fire up public support for health care legislation. Once again, the Administration appears to be fudging the numbers.

The Administration’s website, HealthReform.Gov, which is maintained by DHHS, includes a feature, Health Insurance Reform and Your State: The Case for Change. Viewers are invited to “[s]elect your state to see the report on the current status of health care and the benefit of reform.”

In selecting Ohio as an example, the reader is informed that “1.4 million residents who do not currently have insurance and 533,000 residents who have nongroup insurance could get affordable coverage through the health insurance exchange.” This is not correct. The problem is the 1.4 million figure for Ohio comes from an Urban Institute report, The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform: Implications for States which was produced before the current legislation was introduced in Congress. (more…)