The Author Of The AHIP Report, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Admitted That They Weren't Paid To Evaluate The Effect Of The Entire Bill And Said Their Estimate Could Be Wrong. "PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the authors of AHIP's report, put out a statement last night that basically said, 'Hey, we weren't paid to evaluate the effects of the entire bill, but rather a small slice of it.' The statement only seems to reinforce critics' view that the report is skewed precisely because it doesn't take into account the totality of reform. PwC's report estimates that insurance premiums will rise faster under the proposed reforms than under the current system. The last, and key, line from the statement: 'If other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.' In other words, PwC is saying if reform's cost containment measures work, their estimate could be wrong." [Politico, 10/13/09]

AARP VP John Rother Said The Report Is Not "Worth The Paper It's Written On." AARP Executive Vice President John Rother told reporters Monday that he doesn't think the report is "worth the paper it's written on." Rother also said the report was "fundamentally dishonest." [AP, 10/12/09]

Washington Post's Ezra Klein Said The Insurance Industry's Report Was "Deceptive." The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-'90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results." It's perhaps no surprise that the patently unreliable results were all in the tobacco industry's favor. He who pays the piper names the tune, and all that. All that makes it a bit hard to respond to this analysis. Seriously engaging with its methodology probably gives it more credit than it deserves, making this seem like an argument between two opposing sides as opposed to a predictable industry hit job. But totally ignoring its claims means some of them might live unchallenged. In short, the insurance industry is getting scared. After many months of quiet constructiveness, they're launching a broadside on the week of the Senate Finance Committee's vote. The White House, which had a pleasant meeting with the industry's leadership last week, was shocked by the report, and so too was the Senate Finance Committee. The era of cooperation seems to be over, and they weren't given much advance warning. But the report might have another impact, too: The evident anger and fear of the insurance industry might do a bit to reassure liberals that this plan is worth supporting, after all. [Ezra Klein, Washington Post, 10/12/09]

MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber Said The AHIP Claim on Benefits Tax Was "Implausible.” MIT economist Jonathan Gruber is one of the most well-respected experts in this field--somebody whose modeling has wide credibility, even among Republicans. He looked at the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report and tells me that he finds that set of claims "implausible." The particulars, for those who want to get into the weeds, have to do with PriceWaterhouseCoopers assumptions about regional variation. To arrive at their figures, they assume that average premiums in some parts of the country would exceed the national average by about twice the national average. But the best available data we have, from government surveys and the Kaiser Family Foundation, suggest that average premiums exceed the national average by, at most, around 20 percent. The idea that the variation would somehow explode up to 100 percent, during a period in which reform will likely reduce national variation, is pretty hard to swallow. [New Republic, 10/12/09]

Time Magazine: The Report Based Its Prediction On Provisions That Increase Costs While Ignoring Others That Seek To Mitigate Costs. "One problem with the industry-funded report is that it bases its prediction on provisions in the bill that increase costs, while ignoring others that seek to mitigate those costs -- such as subsidies to help many currently uninsured Americans purchase coverage. ... The report also makes broad assumptions about the impact of reform that conflict with the assessments of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office." [Time Magazine, 10/13/09]

MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman Said The AHIP Report "Sure Seems Stinky" And "I Don't Even Know What Those Numbers Come From." MSNBC's Nancy Snyderman: "Boy, it sure seems stinky. Something doesn't smell right here at the 11th hour. And you know, listen, Karen Ignagni has been a fabulous guest on this program, and I think the health-insurance industry has been -- at least straight-talking, even if they have an agenda. But, boy, something doesn't feel right. ... You know what's very frustrating to those of us who are just normal consumers? I listen to you, I listen to the insurance guys, I listen to the senators on the Baucus committee, and everybody tosses out numbers. And none of them -- none of them gibe with anybody else's. I mean, this report from the insurance industry said that costs would go up 111 percent under reform, and under the current system only -- it says 79 percent, you know, increase. I don't even know what those numbers come from." [MSNBC, 10/12/09]

Former Cigna Executive: Insurance Industry Has Increased The Number Of Uninsured People By Using “Deceptive Marketing Practices” By Selling “What Is Essentially Is Fake Insurance.” The New York Times reported on the vast underinsured population in the United State: “‘Underinsurance is the great hidden risk of the American health care system,’ said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has analyzed medical bankruptcies. ‘People do not realize they are one diagnosis away from financial collapse.’ Last week, a former Cigna executive warned at a Senate hearing on health insurance that lawmakers should be careful about the role they gave private insurers in any new system, saying the companies were too prone to ‘confuse their customers and dump the sick.’ ‘The number of uninsured people has increased as more have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices and bought what essentially is fake insurance,’ Wendell Potter, the former Cigna executive, testified.” [New York Times, 7/1/09]

AHIP Claimed 1% Profits, Which NPR Took To Task: Actual Profits Were Anywhere From 2 To 10 Times More Than Insurers Claimed. NPR examined the health insurer’s claim that their profits represented only 1% of each dollar spent on health care: “Insurers are measuring their profits against total health care spending. That's all the money you and I and employers and insurers and the government spend for doctors' visits, hospitalizations, drugs and other things…But many economists calculate insurance company profits differently. Just like for any other business, they look at what the companies take in — in this case in premiums — versus what they pay out directly, as in claims. Fortune magazine economists calculate insurance company profits this way: For the 10 biggest insurers in the year 2006 (the year the insurers used for the 1 cent out of every dollar depiction above), profits were anywhere from 2 to 10 percent, or two to 10 pennies on the dollar. That's two to 10 times as much as what the insurance industry group suggests in its illustrations.” [National Public Radio, 8/3/09]

Humana Sent A Letter To Its Beneficiaries Falsely Claiming That Seniors Would Lose Benefits In The Medicare Advantage Program Because Of Reform. "Medicare officials are warning the insurance company Humana that it may be breaking federal regulations by sending letters to its beneficiaries that falsely claim seniors would lose benefits in the Medicare Advantage program because of Democrats' health care reforms. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, sent a letter to Humana, Inc. on Friday instructing the company to immediately end all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials from its Web site. The CMS began an investigation into Humana's mailings at the urging of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is writing the health care legislation under attack." [CBS, 9/21/09]

WP: “Research Firm [Lewin Group] Cited By GOP Is Owned By” UnitedHealth. "The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option... The Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.” [Washington Post, 7/22/09]

The Lewin Group Is Part Of Ingenix, Which Paid Settlement To New York And AMA For “Helping Insurers Shift Medical Expenses To Consumers By Distributing Skewed Data.” The Washington Post did a profile of the Lewin Group and it’s connection to embattled Ingenix, owned by UntiedHealth Group, “one of the nation’s largest insurers.” It wrote, “[t]he political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option… the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data…In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.” [Washington Post, 7/22/09]

Politifact Called The Lewin Group Claim That Health Insurance Reform Would Deprive Roughly 120 Million Of Their Health Care “False.” According to PolitiFact’s truth-o-meter, Rep. Mike Pence, in an email, wrote that Democrats propose “a government-controlled health care plan that will deprive roughly 120 million Americans of their current health care coverage.” Politifact wrote that "We asked Pence's staff about the number, and they referred us to a report from the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm. The report ran a number of scenarios, including what would happen if the government offered a public option that was a Medicare-style plan open to everyone. Their model found that 118 million people would choose to drop their private coverage in favor of cheaper public coverage. ... We rated Pence’s statement that the government would ‘deprive’ 120 million of their ‘current health care coverage’ False.” [PolitiFact, 5/19/09]

The Health Care Industry is Spending 1.4 million Per Day on Lobbying. The Washington Post reported that this year has seen "a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records." [Washington Post, July 6, 2009]