To update a story from last month, there’s been a positive development in the controversy surrounding an HHS health care report that hid embarrassing data about health, race, and poverty.
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a review. The Department of Health and Human Services is required to produce annual reports on racial disparities in health care. The most recent report documented how and why minorities receive less care, and less high-quality care, than whites, across a broad range of diseases — so administration officials intervened to make the results look less damaging.
As the Washington Post reported:
A federal report on racial disparities in health care was revised at the behest of top administration officials — and a comparison with an earlier draft shows that the version released in December played down the imbalances and was less critical of the lack of equality….
The National Healthcare Disparities Report was intended by HHS to be a comprehensive look at the scope and reasons for inequalities in health care. A number of studies have shown that even among people with identical diseases and the same income level, minorities are less likely to be diagnosed promptly and more likely to receive sub-optimal care. Documented disparities exist in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, heart disease, AIDS, diabetes, pediatric illness, mental disorders and other conditions. They also exist in surgical procedures and nursing home services.
Concerned that this accurate information might make the administration look bad, officials stepped in to change the report (instead of the administration’s policy). As the minority investigative staff of the House Committee on Government Reform explained:
The scientists’ draft concluded that “disparities come at a personal and societal price,” including lost productivity, needless disability, and early death. The final version drops this conclusion and replaces it with the finding that “some ‘priority populations’ do as well or better than the general population in some aspects of health care.”
In other words, the White House downplayed (and omitted) results showing serious racial disparities and hand-picked isolated data to make the problems seem innocuous. As Kevin Drum noted, “This is sort of like commissioning a report on income disparities and highlighting the fact that blacks do very well in the area of professional basketball.”
Yesterday, however, there was good news about the whole mess.
The administration has finally admitted that it manipulated the data and has promised to release the whole, unedited, report to the public. As the New York Times explained:
The Bush administration says it improperly altered a report documenting large racial and ethnic disparities in health care, but it will soon publish the full, unexpurgated document.
“There was a mistake made,” Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, told Congress last week. “It’s going to be rectified.”
Mr. Thompson said that “some individuals took it upon themselves” to make the report sound more positive than was justified by the data.
Good. Democrats justifiably raised a lot of hell over this and I’m glad Thompson is responding. It would have been better if administration officials hadn’t attempted a cover up in the first place, but I’m glad to see an admission of guilt and a redress.
At the risk of sounding picky, I’d still like Thompson to explain how and why HHS officials intervened to censor the report in the first place, and what steps he is taking to fire those responsible. After all, someone attempted a cover up. Apologizing is a necessary first step, but removing the liable staffers would help ensure that this doesn’t happen again.