Show me a credible source that say single digit participation rates are invalid... That argument is B.S. If it exceeds 10% -- I suspect the participation was coerced.
You have to be kidding. A 4% response rate is more desirable to a 10% response rate?
Statistical power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's not "even if", it absolutely does overwhelmingly represent private practice. Only 11% of the respondents represent hospital based physicians who assume the burden of the under and non insured?
I am concerned about all physicians, however if we are going to start ban-tying about bombastic numbers, then we should be honest enough to point out that this survey was skewed towards physicians who likely have a financial interest to oppose the ACA.
To that end, you should care if large institutions were represented. If this statistic is going to be accurate, it should accurately represent physicians in this country statistically.
So what? What does that have to do with me?
I hate polling -- even more than lawyers or psychiatrists.. (hope I didn't step in it there).
But the BIAS and MISINTERPRETATION is part of the process. Here's a PEW Methodology for the recent ACA debate, and BURIED in the methodology you find...
Any Court Health Care Decision Unlikely to Please | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 7-17 among 2,013 adults, finds that none of these outcomes is particularly appealing to independents, though more would like to see the law entirely overturned than kept in place. Half (50%) of independents say they would be happy if the entire law is overturned, while only 35% would be happy if the entire law is upheld. Independents have a divided reaction to the court throwing out the individual mandate while upholding the rest of the law (44% happy, 49% unhappy).
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted June 7-17, 2012, among a national sample of 2,013 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (1,127 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 886 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 455 who had no landline telephone).
Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home.
Think THAT made it to media blitz campaign eh? That it was a study of YOUNG ADULTS?
Shamans --- all of them...
But note --- they got +/- 2.5 percentage points by surveying JUST 2013 people in the whole f'in country !!!!
And what is the EXPECTED response from the GENERAL PUBLIC?
Gauging the Impact of Growing Nonresponse on Estimates from a National RDD Telephone Survey
Where the 1997 Rigorous study completed 1,201 interviews after making 31,385 calls, the 2003 Rigorous study completed 1,089 interviews after 72,485 calls.This decline in productivity is consistent with previous research showing that the number of calls needed to achieve a given response rate has increased dramatically in recent years (Brick et al. 2003; Curtin, Presser, and Singer 2000).
Single - Digit eh? And those ARE THE RIGOROUS surveys... ((note in a RIGOROUS survey, the number of calls refers to retries, opt-outs, and coercing completion of the selected survey participants. Something that takes LOTS of bucks))
1) My conclusion is never trust a poll at all if you don't read the methodology.
2) Then STILL be skeptical.
3) Never accept the journalistic slant.
4) Consider GOOD polling as an anecdotal factoid..
So -- I'm not completely defending this non-rigorous poll. It may be IMPOSSIBLE anymore to even do GOOD polling because of general decline in participation. But it IS good enough to make me want to be concerned...