Fwd: ANS - special Report - Editors Note:

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>Editors note:
>As an editor at ANS I rarely offer opinion in an
>attempt to keep the email down but
>Sometimes it becomes necessary to point to important events and comment.
>The health care debate at this point is one of those times.
>
>The health care bill that was passed last year
>by the US Legislature was the first
>Improvement in health care in over 60 years. No
>other president has made positive changes
>In US health care since Medicare under LBJ. Now
>that the publicity of the Tucson shooting has subsided
>Republicans in Congress will attempt to repeal
>the new law. The reason for this is the presumed loss of jobs.
>This is a totally false claim and the following
>AP article will illuminate this.
>
>Remember wire stories AP, Reuters, UPI etc. are
>not always carried by newspapers or other media
>that is why we at ANS send these
>Stories out. Enjoy…
>--Joyce
>
>FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate
>WASHINGTON (AP) ­ Republicans pushing to repeal
>President Barack Obama's health care overhaul
>warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand.
>But the widely cited estimate by House GOP
>leaders is shaky. It's the latest creative use
>of statistics in the health care debate, which
>has seen plenty of examples from both sides.
>Republicans are calling their thumbs-down
>legislation the "Repealing the Job-Killing
>Health Care Law Act." Postponed after the mass
>shootings in Tucson, a House vote on the
>divisive issue is now expected Wednesday,
>although Democrats promise they'll block repeal in the Senate.
>A recent report by House GOP leaders says
>"independent analyses have determined that the
>health care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy."
>It cites the 650,000 lost jobs as Exhibit A, and
>the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as
>the source of the original analysis behind that
>estimate. But the budget office, which referees
>the costs and consequences of legislation, never produced the number.
>What follows is a story of how statistics get used and abused in Washington.
>What CBO actually said is that the impact of the
>health care law on supply and demand for labor
>would be small. Most of it would come from
>people who no longer have to work, or can
>downshift to less demanding employment, because
>insurance will be available outside the job.
>"The legislation, on net, will reduce the amount
>of labor used in the economy by a small amount
>­roughly half a percent­ primarily by reducing
>the amount of labor that workers choose to
>supply," budget office number crunchers said in a report from last year.
>That's not how it got translated in the new
>report from Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other top Republicans.
>CBO "has determined that the law will reduce the
>'amount of labor used in the economy by.roughly
>half a percent.,' an estimate that adds up to
>roughly 650,000 jobs lost," the GOP version said.
>Gone was the caveat that the impact would be
>small, mainly due to people working less. Added
>was the estimate of 650,000 jobs lost.
>The Republican translation doesn't track, said
>economist Paul Fronstin of the nonpartisan
>Employee Benefit Research Institute. "People
>voluntarily working less isn't the same as
>employers cutting jobs," he explained.
>For example, CBO said some people might decide
>to retire earlier because it would be easier to
>get health care, instead of waiting until they
>become eligible for Medicare at age 65.
>The law "reduces the amount of labor supplied,
>but it's not reducing the ability of people to
>find jobs, which is what the job-killing slogan
>is intended to convey," said economist Paul Van
>de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy
>Priorities. The center advocates for low-income
>people, and supports the health care law.
>In theory, any legislation that increases costs
>for employers can lead to job loss. But with the
>health care law, companies can also decide to
>pass on added costs to their workers, as some have already done this year.
>To put things in perspective, there are
>currently about 131 million jobs in the economy.
>CBO projects that unemployment will be
>significantly lower in 2014, when the law's major coverage expansion starts.
>A spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee
>Republicans pointed out that CBO's report did
>flag that some employers would cut hiring. "The
>CBO analysis does not claim that the entire
>response is people exiting the labor market," said Michelle Dimarob.
>The law's penalties on employers who don't
>provide health insurance might cause some
>companies to hire fewer low-wage workers, or to
>hire more part-timers instead of full-time
>employees, the budget office said. But the main
>consequence would still be from more people choosing not to work.
>That still doesn't answer the question of how
>Republicans came up with the estimate of 650,000 lost jobs.
>Dimarob said staffers took the 131 million jobs
>and multiplied that by half a percent, the
>number from the CBO analysis. The result:
>650,000 jobs feared to be in jeopardy.
>"For ordinary Americans who could fall into that
>half a percent, that is a vitally important
>stat, and it is reasonable to suggest they would
>not characterize the effect as small," she said.
>But Fronstin said that approach is also
>questionable, since the budget office and the
>GOP staffers used different yardsticks to
>measure overall jobs and hours worked. The
>differences would have to be adjusted first in
>order to produce an accurate estimate.
>Said Van de Water, "The number doesn't mean what they say it means."
>Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
>