Al Franken Explains Selection Effects

Al Franken is quickly becoming my hero. Below is a clip (h/t Effect Measure) where he not only makes a very prescient case for health care reform and the impact on "medical bankruptcies," but also shows that he is unwilling to be bullied, knows what selection effects are, and is able to explain them so that they can be understood in such a way that he uses them to make the case for health care reform.

I can admit that I was a little bit weary of Al Franken running for the Senate. I used to listen to his radio show on Air America and thought that he was a little arrogant and showed a lack of nuance in some of the opinions that he expressed on that show. I was also worried that he didn't have the discipline to stay on message and not make needlessly disparaging comments that would come back and haunt him later. But, he handled himself with incredible grace during the recount and subsequent court battles in Minnesota and has shown an incredible acuity for both politics and policies in the Senate.

Medical bankruptcies are bankruptcies that are related to medical or health-related issues. A 2005 study showed that medical bankruptcies affect between 1.9–2.2 million Americans in 2001 alone. As if filing for bankruptcy wasn't bad enough, the authors found that many of those who filed for bankruptcy had problems finding a future apartment, job, or cars because of their credit unworthiness. Sen. Franken points out that there are zero of these bankruptcies in France, Germany, and Switzerland.

Then, when the right-wing shill asks Sen. Franken if he knows the international disparities in cancer outcomes, he already has an answer that every intro stats class should watch for an explanation of selection effects. If, because we only treat people socioeconomically advantaged enough to not have serious complications for cancer, of course we would expect that our cancer outcomes would be much better than those who treat difficult cases as well. In other words, the design of the study selected on the dependent variable — likelihood to survive cancer treatment — to receive treatment; it is therefore, unsurprising when cancer patients here survive more.

As is becoming frequent of late around here, I congratulate Senator Franken for his outstanding representation of this country.

Despicable

Despite having good fun at the expense of crazy Republicans, the latest news about incompetent Republicans is horrifying. Below is a clip from The Daily Show explaining how the majority of Republicans voted against an amendment offered by Al Franken that prohibits “the Defense Department from contracting with companies that require employees to resolve sexual assault allegations and other claims through arbitration” (h/t ThePopTort Blog):

The amendment, sadly brought to national attention because of the bravery of Jamie Leigh Jones who came forward to describe her horrific ordeal being raped in Iraq while employed by former Halliburton subsidiary KBR. KBR tried to mandate that, before her co-workers gang-raped her and then locked her in a shipping container, Jones had signed away her right to sue KBR and could only seek redress through arbitration with KBR.

Now, you would expect that many Republicans would support business interests over others. But, I never thought that anyone would support business interests over the interests of rape victims! Unfortunately, that is what happened because 30 Republican senators voted against this amendment. Although the readership of this blog is small, I feel that it is necessary to call these Senators out publicly:

Alexander (R-TN)	Barrasso (R-WY)	Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)	Bunning (R-KY)	Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)	Coburn (R-OK)	Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)	Cornyn (R-TX)	Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)	Ensign (R-NV)	Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)	Gregg (R-NH)	Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)	Johanns (R-NE)	Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)	McConnell (R-KY)	Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)	Sessions (R-AL)	Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)	Vitter (R-LA)	Wicker (R-MS)

I cannot believe how incredibly despicable some of these legislators are.

I believe that it is also important to note the Republicans that broke with the majority of their party to vote for this amendment:

Bennett (R-UT)	Collins (R-ME)	Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)	Hutchison (R-TX)	LeMieux (R-FL)
Lugar (R-IN)	Murkowski (R-AK)	Snowe (R-ME)
Voinovich (R-OH)

NOTE: A slight edit made to the original version because, on a quick glance, it appeared as those who supported the amendment were despicable — not their 30 detestable colleagues.