Opinion: Biased Study Claims 2,266 Uninsured U.S. Veterans Died in 2008
Nov. 11, 2009 – Results of a new Harvard University study conducted by a group advocating a national health care plan and elimination of private health insurance suggest thousands of U.S. military veterans died in 2008 due to a lack of health care services.
The study claims 2,266 U.S. veterans lacking health insurance and ineligible for care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs likely died in 2008 due to a lack of health care. Harvard University researchers advocating a national public health plan used Census Bureau polling data indicating about 1.46 million veterans had no health insurance in 2008.
Researchers then applied results from an earlier study they had conducted estimating Americans without health insurance stand a 40 percent greater chance of dying than their counterparts who have health insurance. When applying their prior 40 percent greater mortality rate estimate to the estimated 1.46 million veterans without health insurance, researchers concluded 2,266 veterans died because they could not get health care in 2008.
Conducted by proponents of a national health care plan, the study concludes a lack of health care killed thousands of military veterans lacking health insurance last year, but it’s methodology casts doubt on researchers’ conclusions.
Potential research bias aside, the researchers applied general estimates of a much larger population to a specific and much smaller subset, which means alternative explanations have not been eliminated. One of the first principles of academic research requires an elimination of alternative explanations, such as obesity, genetic dispositions and other potential variables, in order to isolate a specific variable – such as a lack of health insurance.
Not every subset population suffers the same fate. Some populations are more prone to dying from swine flu or West Nile disease than others, for example. And ailments can vary greatly based on geographic area, such as an unusually high incidence of cancer among residents of the former Love Canal community in New York.
Military veterans generally suffer from ailments quite different than the general population, according to the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. Among long-term ailments more likely to be suffered by veterans than the general population are amputations, recovering head injuries, prior exposure to environmental hazards, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.
Because researchers knowingly applied a general finding to a specific subset without eliminating alternative explanations, they knowingly or otherwise engaged in a deceptive form of research clearly aimed at a specific outcome – creating a single-payer health care system and elimination of private health insurance plans. The study’s lead authors, Dr. David Himmelstein and Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, are highly active members of the non-profit Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates eliminating private health insurance plans in favor of a government-run, single-payer system. Woolhandler helped found the organization, and Himmelstein has been its national spokesman for several years.
Given the inherent flaws in the study’s methodology combined with the strong likelihood of research bias, while an interesting read, no valid conclusions can be drawn from the study by Himmelstein and Woolhandler.
(Opinion by Mike Heuer, a former news reporter, political writer and holder of a master’s degree in marketing-based public relations from Michigan State University)
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