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> See, for example, her nonsensical claims that medical costs cause millions of bankruptcies, It is "common knowledge" that medical costs drive bankruptcies s
by ahh 14y ago
> See, for example, her nonsensical claims that medical costs cause millions of bankruptcies,
It is "common knowledge" that medical costs drive bankruptcies so I'm surprised to hear you say this; but of course, I know that "common knowledge" is often wrong. Can you explain how medical costs don't actually often result in bankruptcy?
(This is not an attempt at a sarcastic troll--I think you often, but not always, do have correct contrarian opinions, I just don't know what this one is.)
- yummyfajitas 14y agoIt has been "common knowledge" ever since Warren pushed a study claiming it during election season. The gist of the flaw is this: # Medical bankruptcies = # of bankruptcies x [P(bankruptcy | medical cause) - P(bankruptcy | no medical cause)] x P(medical cause) Warren computed only P(medical cause | bankruptcy). Thus, her study cannot, even in principle, be used to estimate # medical bankruptcies. However, she used verbiage hinting that P(medical cause | bankruptcy) x # of bankruptcies = # of medical bankruptcies (do the math - it's not). A bunch of innumerate reporters read the verbiage and ignored the math, leading this "fact" to become "common knowledge". The claim may or may not be true - I don't know of good data on it. But all Warren did was deliberately confuse the issue to support her political allies. See also http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabeth-warren-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-utterly-misleading-bankruptcy-study/18826/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabet...