Looks like they definitely overplayed their hand. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the consulting company which did the analysis for AHIP, appears not to like the way that people are viewing the biases in the report. They see how AHIP is being tarred, and may fear they are going to be diminished as well. They released a statement:
America’s Health Insurance Plans engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to prepare a report that focused on four components of the Senate Finance Committee proposal:
· Insurance market reforms and consumer protections that would raise health insurance premiums for individuals and families if the reforms are not coupled with an effective coverage requirement.
· An excise tax on employer-sponsored high value health plans.
· Cuts in payment rates in public programs that could increase cost shifting to private sector businesses and consumers.
· New taxes on health sector entities.The analysis concluded that collectively the four provisions would raise premiums for private health insurance coverage. As the report itself acknowledges, other provisions that are part of health reform proposals were not included in the PwC analysis. The report stated on page 1:
“The reform packages under consideration have other provisions that we have not included in this analysis. We have not estimated the impact of the new subsidies on the net insurance cost to households. Also, 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, we (PWC) did what they (AHIP) asked and nothing more. You should not interpret anything in the report to be representative of what will occur in the real world.
