SCHIP director: SCHIP lacks “actual evidence of the benefits for children”
July 9th, 2008 | by Brian T. Schwartz |Via Michael Cannon at Cato-at-Liberty:
Like other advocates for children’s health, I have an almost religious conviction that the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is effective public policy. … Although I have no empirical evidence to support the assertion that SCHIP is a beneficial and effective way to invest in children’s health, I worked to expand the program. … The lack of actual evidence of the benefits for children is simply damning to the program.
— Mitch Roob, Director, Indiana Family and Social Services Administration
Mr. Roob wrote this in a letter published in the July/August issue health policy journal Health Affairs. Here are some more excerpts:
I was not able to base this expansion on empirical evidence because there is none. In the past decade, a study has never been conducted to determine whether SCHIP actually improves the overall health and well-being of children. In Health Affairs in 2007, Genevieve Kenney and colleagues (Mar/Apr 07) stated, “The evidence on the effect of SCHIP on children’s health and function is mixed.” The lack of actual evidence of the benefits for children is simply damning to the program.
There is a large body of research on the positive effects that health insurance coverage has on the overall health and well-being of adults, and it is past time for the same effort to be placed on children’s health. Public policy-makers need more than just a conviction that SCHIP works and is worthy of public investment. We need facts.
I admire Mr. Roob for his honesty and courage. Michael Cannon’s comments are precious:
Wow. I mean, wow.
I see three possible outcomes. One, all that cognitive dissonance causes Roob’s head to explode. Two, the Church hierarchy dispatches its goons to burn this heretic at the stake for noticing that their god has no clothes. Three, the Left decides “to hell with it,” admits that it has a religion, and files for tax-exempt status.
This brings to mind philosopher Mike Huemer’s article, Why People Are Irrational About Politics.
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One Response to “SCHIP director: SCHIP lacks “actual evidence of the benefits for children””
By Tom West on Jul 10, 2008 | Reply
The lack of actual evidence of the benefits for children is simply damning to the program.
Only if you’re primary purpose is to help improve health outcomes. If the primary purpose of SCHIP is to help voters and politicians feel good about themselves, lack of evidence does no harm to the program at all. After all, it has a nice common-sense narrative to explain its efficacy: If you spend dollars on health care for children, then children will be healthier.
Thus, you’ll need more than a simple lack of evidence that the program works to prevent SCHIP from continuing.
In order to disprove something that seems common-sense in the public arena, you not only have to prove statistically that health outcomes don’t improve, you *must* provide an alternative narrative as to *why* they don’t that can also be grasped by the majority of voters.
For most people, facts will only be retained if they conform to an acceptable narrative. Those that don’t will tend to be discarded, disbelieved, or, most likely, simply ignored.