Examiner touts Heritage chart, ignores rest of the story
August 12, 2009 3:41 pm ET by Terry Krepel
The print edition of the August 12 Washington Examiner contained a version of a Heritage Foundation chart purporting to offer a selected state-by-state breakdown of how an "independent analysis by the nonpartisan Lewin Group" showed that health-care reform "could shift 88 million Americans out of existing employer-based plans" and into the proposed public plan.
But the Examiner failed to note that the "nonpartisan" Lewin Group is owned by the insurance company UnitedHealth Group, which has a stake in not wanting people to switch from private insurance. Nor did the Examiner mention that, by contrast, the Congressional Budget Office found that only 2 million people would switch from employer coverage to the public plan.
Heritage didn't mention any of that either, of course -- but then, it commissioned the Lewin Group report.
Of course, when the CBO says that the health care plan costs more than Dems say it does, then publications like The Examiner will be all over the CBO report.
Failing to note this glaring bias, and indeed calling the Lewin Group 'nonpartisan' would seem to be the end of journalistic integrity for the editorial staff at the Examiner. Bells should have been going off to check sources as soon as they realized it was a Heritage Foundation chart, as this group has a very well known and documented bias.
If you are for Obama care you are non partisan and if you are against it you are partisan? Is that it?
So then all you folks on the left here at Mediamatters and those who comment against what folks on the right say are all wise and impartial spokespersons and all those who support any resistance to your incisive political statements are hateful, stupid and wrong?
Have I about got it straight?
So happy you folks got me informed.
What we'd like to see is some intelligent reasoned opposing views. What we get is absurd talking points. Industry sponsered and transported people to disrupt townhall meetings. Acusations of being racist, thugs, and like your call that we're misticly shutting down the debate with our observations and rude comments.
Partisan behavior, like having a bias, has no effect on a good and through argument. So often though it is part and parcel of bad to illegitimate arguments and statements. Hang arround here for a while and observe the media dance away from any substitive discussion. There are exceptions. Maybe a sea change underway. My local NBC afilliate had a good discussion on the subject today.
Care to give us your reasoned and intelligent thoughts on healthcare reform, just be aware, we've seen every lie multiple times, seeing one of them again as if it just now erupted from the forehead of Zeus, is irritating.
Fair warning.
I've been hanging around for a couple of weeks reading most of the articles and observing the resulting blog comments. I find the use of the word "lies" to be excessive. I think folks on both sides of this issue are reading in a shallow manner and going off half cocked.
I agree that there are things about the system that need fixing.
It is too expensive, there is a problem with pre-existing conditions and there are numbers of people who are legitimately uninsured because of this. I think the number is overstated but I agree that it is in the millions. I understand that the current proposals are not strictly single payer systems.
This said, I am worried about the stated aims of numbers of Democratic members of the house and senate, as well as the President himself that lead me to believe that whatever they propose is the foot in the door that will lead to a single payer system. Every model of a single payer system in the world, including the Scandinavian countries, Great Britain and Canada leads me to the belief that a single payer government sponsored model, increases costs, and decreases the quality and availability of care.
I do not understand the necessity of a complete overhaul of the system when the majority of people are already insured and able to afford it.
I also disagree with the concept that all insurance companies are evil and that profit is a dirty word. Don't you want your insurance company to have enough liquidity to cover your claims when they occur? When I look at the financial situation of the United States Government as a potential insurer I am uneasy, to say the least. I see a deficit instead of a cash reserve. The only way that I can see for the government to get sufficient reserves to cover the claims that will result is either a large tax increase, or an increasing deficit and the resulting inflation that follows.
See this link for an idea of where the deficit has been and where it is going.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5yxFtTwDcc
Commonman
Serious, Mr. A-hole, you come in here all sarastic snark and expect us to greet you with deference? Yo come in here with insults at the tip of your keyboard and we're supposed to be impressed with you? Tell you what, Mr. A-hole; I'll treat you with all the respect you've shown us:
STFU and get the sheol back to freeperville where you belong, you sanctimonious piece of...
You made my point more eloquently than I could, 'cause I don't use that type of lingo. I don't expect to be treated in any particular way, But I sure got you riled now di'nt I?
Actually the death panel thing leaves me a bit cold. It's an exaggeration and I don't like stupid hyperbole from the right any more than from the left. So your comments leave me about as cold as the death panel argument.
That said, would you like to comment on the number of unfunded mandates in the existing health proposals and how they are going to be paid for?
"The number of 119 million is absolutely correct," says John Sheils, senior vice president of the Lewin Group, a number-crunching consulting group owned by Ingenix, which is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
But that number hardly represents the entirety of the report Sheils and colleague Randy Haught put out in April. The point of the study was to show that the number of people who would eventually join a government-sponsored public insurance plan would vary — dramatically — depending on how that plan is designed.
If the public plan is open to everyone and pays health care providers rates similar to those paid by the government-run Medicare program, which are lower than most private insurers pay, "you'd have a lower premium level and thus [more] people go into it," says Sheils.
But if the public plan is limited to fewer people (perhaps only those in small businesses and individuals), or if the plan pays higher rates to doctors and hospitals, fewer people would join, both because fewer would be allowed and because the plan would be less financially attractive. According to the study, the number of people dropping private coverage could be as low as 10.4 million.
The study looked at six options, says Sheils. "And five of those options are less aggressively priced than the Medicare payment level option," meaning they would attract fewer enrollees to switch from private insurance coverage.