Down the Memory Hole: I can not be fully confident of the accuracy of data released by the HHS Dept. after 1/20/25.

Sun, 01/19/2025 - 2:34pm

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty’s figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.

For example, the Ministry of Plenty’s forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions.

Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

--George Orwell, 1984

I've spent the past week or so furiously updating & expanding a healthcare data project of mine, which breaks out total enrollment in a wide variety of non-employer-based healthcare coverage categories by not just state but Congressional District:

All of these can be found at the master spreadsheet link here. I've broken them out into 5 different worksheets (use the tabs at the bottom).

It was important for me to compile as comprehensive and up to date a version of this as I could before noon tomorrow, because after that I can't be 100% confident that any enrollment data (or any other type of data for that matter) released by the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. (which includes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) will be accurate.

DON'T GET ME WRONG: I'm not saying that everything posted by HHS or CMS under the Trump 2.0 Administration will be bullshit. My guess is the vast majority of it will probably be reasonably accurate, at least for the first few months...if only because it will take awhile for whatever sycophants/grifters he puts in charge of those departments (likely antivaxxer nutjob RFK Jr. for HHS and grifter/snake oil salesman Dr. Oz for CMS) to purge their departments of career professionals and replace them with MAGA/Trump loyalists.

Even then, it's quite possible that some or even most reports will remain reasonably accurate, in some cases simply because Trump doesn't see any reason to cook those particular books; in other cases they may simply not be aware that some data is even being made publicly available.

Honestly, my biggest fear is that they'll simply stop publishing some of the critical data reports altogether in the name of "government efficiency" or whatever.

The bottom line is, like Winston Smith, I may not know for certain whether a given press release is completely accurate, slightly inaccurate, largely inaccurate or total bullshit. In every case I'll have to compare what the Trump Admin data claims against what my other sources and my experience living with & analyzing this type of data every day for the past decade plus tells me. If it seems to correlate pretty closely with what I'd expect, I'll say so; if it deviates wildly, I'll say that as well.

In general, however, while I'll continue to report on and analyze this data as I have been for the past decade, if it comes from the Trump Administration I'll have no choice but to start adding "Trump Admin claims..." to any headline or story lede going forward.

God help us all.