When people use tobacco insurance companies charge them higher premiums. So smoking and chewing must be unhealthy, right?

Right. More smokers means more lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. According to the CDC, about 443,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses each year.

Then why are seven of the largest life and health insurance companies in the United States, Canada and the UK invested to the tune of $4.4 billion in tobacco companies?

Having grown fat off individuals' health care premiums, particularly smokers', giant insurers like Prudential, Mass Mutual and Sun Life are investing some of those billions in tobacco companies.

J. Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard shared a list of the insurers and the size of their investments in tobacco companies as of March of this year. In a correspondence piece to the New England Journal of Medicine published June 4 they wrote:

"Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both. Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit -- and smokers lose twice over.

"These facts should discomfit Canadian and British readers as their countries consider further privatization of health insurance," wrote Boyd. "For those of us in the United States, these data are a reminder of the true priority of the insurance industry, which is making money, not ensuring health and wellbeing."

A rational person might hope that this knowledge would cause some discomfiture in Washington, DC, where Congress is presumably wrestling over how to best reform the health care system so that it serves people, not profits, and wrests some control over health care delivery away from insurance companies. But so far, those in charge of crafting the plan are listening only to industry.

The strategically timed release of a poll showing a sudden 10-point flip in American views on abortion should raise a few eyebrows.

Gallup's press release claimed, "More Americans "Pro-Life" Than "Pro-Choice" for First Time."

While partisan mainstream editorial writers openly gloated about the "stunning" and "shocking" poll released in May, few traditional media looked critically and honestly at what the poll actually revealed, and reported the findings with the same slant as the news release. Rather than spending a minute exploring why it was stunning or shocking, the media simply reported it as fact.

First off, polls should be suspect. While they may have been reliable in a more innocent age, Gallup, like many other polling companies, is a for-profit corporation. They are commissioned to conduct polls. Unfortunately, polling companies are not required to disclose the name of the commissioning organization, even though it's the ethically responsible thing to do.

The Gallup poll was released on the day anti-abortion groups planned protests against President Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame and just as there's a new seat to fill on the U.S. Supreme Court. It certainly smells of partisan efforts to create a buzz and revitalize controversy.

Here's what the watchdogs said about the Gallup poll as well as a Pew poll that also re-interpreted long-standing findings about America's stand on abortion choice:

Newshounds: "The truth is that while the Gallup poll showed that a greater number of those polled identified themselves as "pro-life" (51%) than "pro-choice" (42%), the majority (76%) responded that abortion should be legal in either all or limited circumstances. Only 23% responded that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances."  

Media Matters: "...Gallup hypes a poll that finds a majority of Americans self-identify as "pro-life" for the first time ever, even though that finding is based on the implausible premise that the two parties are tied in Party ID -- a premise that Gallup itself contradicts elsewhere. And, get this, Gallup didn't mention the tie in Party ID in its release touting the abortion findings. Had it done so, the findings would have (appropriately) been greeted with much more skepticism.

"That's pretty dishonest -- Gallup withheld information about its own poll that undermined the sensational claim it was making about that poll's findings.  And it's a useful reminder that broad announcements like "More Americans 'Pro-Life' Than 'Pro-Choice' for First Time" shouldn't be taken particularly seriously unless they are accompanied by the complete poll."

The Monkey Cage:  "Simply put, the Pew and Gallup findings obscure far more than they reveal. They purport to show shifts in opinion that are not evident in other data. There is no consistent evidence for a "conservative turn," as Pew puts it.

"Moreover, both Pew and Gallup employ vague questions that do not easily map onto actual policy debates. Once more precise data are employed, it becomes clear that opinion strongly depends on the circumstances under which the abortion would occur. While people who are favor a legal abortion under any of the circumstances mentioned outnumber those who unequivocally oppose abortion by a factor of abut 3, most people are in the middle. In the GSS data, 58% favor a legal abortion under some circumstances, but not others."

Finally, here's a comment from a participant in an abortion poll published in a letter-to-the-editor of the Seattle Times:

Biased method could impact results

"I was polled during the time frame that Gallup did its polling on the "pro-life" issue, although I do not know definitively if it was the Gallup poll who called me because the polling organization did not identify itself.

 

The poll was recorded. I was first asked if I was a registered voter. When I responded "yes," I was asked if I was "pro-life" (not "pro-life" or "pro-choice," which is the more appropriate question). I was a bit disconcerted at the question because it was not framed in terms of abortion -- just "are you pro-life?" I gave my answer and the recording thanked me and hung up.

 

I hung up feeling angry because there was no nuance allowed in the answers and I was not given the option of declaring myself pro-choice. I had to answer no to being "pro-life" because I assumed, correctly, that the opposite answer would register me as being anti-abortion.

However, believing that abortion should be legal does not make someone "anti-life" or "pro-death." I would like to know who polled me in this very biased manner. If this poll was not conducted by Pew or Gallup, it would be nice to know who is trying to confuse the issue.

 

I suggest the press delve a little more deeply into this issue." -- Deanna Nelson, Seattle

 

Much of the problem can be boiled down to what Ms. Nelson says in her letter.

Doesn't a complex issue like abortion deserve more than black and white thinking and a narrowly interpreted poll?