The Insurance Industry's Deceptive Report

Washington Post by Ezra Klein | Oct. 12, 2009 (Opinion)

(Blog Post) In the hallowed tradition of the tobacco and energy industries, the health insurance industry has commissioned a report (pdf) projecting doom and despair for those who seek to reform its business practices. 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 ... Full Story »

Posted by Derek Hawkins - via Memeorandum, NewsRack (Health Care)

See All Reviews »

View

Review

Dwight Rousu
4.3
 by Dwight Rousu - Oct. 13, 2009

Klein provides good qualitative evaluation of the industry report, and incorporates some history of Pricewaterhouse methods from earlier tobacco tax proposals. He argues that quantitative analysis takes the report too seriously, because it is largely based upon false premises.

That may raise prices, in much the way that antibiotics cost more than herbal supplements, but it raises prices because it reduces the insurance industry’s ability to sell a deceptive and insufficient product.

See All Reviews »

Dwight's Rating

Overall
4.3

Good
from 13 answers
Quality
4.3
Information
4.0
Insight
5.0
Style
4.0
Context
4.0
Expertise
3.0
Originality
4.0
Relevance
5.0
Responsibility
4.0
Popularity
4.5
Recommendation
5.0
Credibility
4.0
More How our ratings work »