Bush History 12/23: Your Taxes to Distort Data

On this Date in Bush History 12/23: Your Tax Dollars Distorting Data

2003: President Bush's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issues the "National Healthcare Disparities Report", requested by Congress to determine any role that race and income play in healthcare quality.

The report is based on a study chaired by Dr. Alan Nelson, a former president of the American Medical Association. The study's key findings: "Disparities in the health care delivered to racial and ethnic minorities are real and are associated with worse outcomes in many cases ... The real challenge lies not in debating whether disparities exist, because the evidence is overwhelming, but in developing and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate them".

A draft of the HHS report included many of the facts from this study. That is when President Bush's political appointees got involved. The tone of the final HHS report was modified to minimize reports of healthcare discrepancies.

A Congressional investigation into administration manipulation reported: "In the June draft, the Department's scientists found 'significant inequality' ... called healthcare disparities 'national problems', emphasized that these disparities are 'pervasive in our health care system', and found that the disparities carry a significant 'personal and societal price'. The final version of the report amazingly contains none of these conclusions. Indeed, a one-sided presentation of facts paints a rosy picture. According to the Congressional investigation, "the executive summary highlights that 'American Indians/Alaska Natives have a lower death rate from all cancers'. The executive summary does not mention that overall life expectancies for American Indians and Alaska Natives are significantly shorter than for other Americans or that their infant mortality rates are substantially higher". The draft report included the word "disparity" over 30 times in the "key findings"; after Bush administration tinkering "disparity" appears only twice.

Do we really need to be spending tax dollars to hire people to distort the findings of researchers reporting data to Congress? Apparently, the Bush administration believes that we do.

Excerpt from the 2008 Bush Calendar: "Poor George's Almanac"