Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best

[SpartanDem]

Do we really need more proof, outside the millions they've spent lobbying against it, that HCR is something that the insurance industry just does not want. Who would've thunk that Kucinich and the rest of it's better to do nothing crowd would find common ground with Goldman Sachs






Goldman Sachs analysis of health care legislation has concluded that, as far as the bottom line for insurance companies is concerned, the best thing to do is nothing. A close second would be passing a watered-down version of the Senate Finance Committee's bill.

A study put together by Goldman in mid-October looks at the estimated stock performance of the private insurance industry under four variations of reform legislation. The study focused on the five biggest insurers whose shares are traded on Wall Street: Aetna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, CIGNA and Humana.

The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman's analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive the legislative process, is described as the "base" scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010 through 2019. And yet, the "variance with current valuation" -- essentially, what the value of the stock is on the market -- is projected to drop four percent.

Things are much worse, Goldman estimates, for legislation that resembles what was considered and (to a certain extent) passed by the House of Representatives. This is, the firm deems, the "bear case" scenario -- in which earnings per share for the top five insurers would decline an estimated one percent from 2010 through 2019 and the variance with current valuation is projected to be negative 36 percent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Actually, Kucinich & most of DU sharply disagree with Goldman Sachs

They think the current reform legislation is better for the insurance industry than doing nothing.


Goldman certainly are not angels, but they know their economics backwards, forwards, and inside-out.

[HamdenRice]

4. Rofl! Yup! nt

[Aramchek]

20. it's really less than 25% of DU, but they scream the loudest

[Cha]

23. Yeah, it's

not most.

[ipaint]

2. They are going to get either nothing or a watered down version of the senate

bill. Point being they'll get one of their top two choices and the profits will keep flowing in courtesy of taxpayer welfare. We will continue to pay to keep a miserably failed business model functioning, one that profits from denying care.

Who would of thunk the "kucinich" crowd was right. Well besides every other country with a successfully functioning form of universal coverage on the planet.

[geek tragedy]

3. Um, Kucinich voted against the 'worst case scenario' for the corporations.

He favors Wall Street's 'best case scenario' over its 'worst case scenario.'

Just in case people wondered why there was a lot of backlash against his vote.

[ipaint]

6. That's not why he said he voted no.

That's your explanation to further dis-enfranchise folks who see the disaster this plan will be as it unfolds.

Funny, the fact is kucinich's vote didn't hurt the passage of the house bill. His vote served to highlight the fatal flaws in the bill. That's the problem with the kucinich vote.

[geek tragedy]

8. No one is under the illusion that the House bill is close to perfect.

The question is whether doing nothing is really better than the House bill. Wall Street prefers nothing. So does Kucinich.

Now, either Wall Street suddenly got really stupid about how to rip people off, or Kucinich made an honest error.

[ipaint]

11. Wall street has always been perfectly fine with option 2

Is reform something wall street should continue to see rising stock prices as a result of? Profits made by a private business that denies care.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. Goldman's analysis is from the perspective of a shareholder.

Not a person concerned about health care. Nice try though.

[ipaint]

7. Isn't that the perspective of congress.

Especially the senate.

[geek tragedy]

9. The Republicans have that perspective.

Which is why they're all voting against any kind of reform.

[ipaint]

10. And the majority of democrats which is why they are voting for it.

The senate will make sure wall street gets it's first or second choice.

It's a winning strategy to own both sides.

[geek tragedy]

13. Huh? The best case scenario for them is no reform.

Worst case is the House Bill.

How is supporting the worst case a bad thing for Democrats?

[ipaint]

14. And the CLOSE second option is?

Both the top 2 options mean growing profits for wall street and nothing or next to nothing for citizens.

Who do you think your fooling?

[geek tragedy]

16. 2nd best choice is a watered down version of Senate Finance.

Again, doing nothing is the BEST thing for them. Which means it's the absolute worst option for us.

[ipaint]

17. A close second produces almost identical results.

A bit less of a rise in their investment profits. Boo-hoo.

[SpartanDem]

22. You base this on what?

There is absolutely logical reason to think that what passes be worse than what is already on the table.

[ipaint]

24. Of course it's going to be worse. Every single step in this process from the beginning has made

each successive proposal worse. It's pretty illogical to think something better will emerge magically in the end.

The insurance industry has been around this whole fight before. They know exactly when to apply pressure/money/promised lucrative future careers etc., at different stages of the "sausage making" process. It's a science to them and the result will reflect their expertise at gaming the system and the public's naivete in believing their elected representatives aren't really bought and the completely irrational assumption that an industry which profits from denying care will just stop it 'cause someone writes a law against it.

[SpartanDem]

25. Your logic completely defies the legislative process

what passes is not going to be any worse than the worst available option which is the Senate Finance bill. Which even GS says will cut in their bottom line, the far more likely scenario is it will not be as strong as the House bill, but stronger than what came of out the finance committee.

[ipaint]

26. Well on that we'll jst have to see. The ins. companies are buying this bill so I don't see it

being any better than their choice #2 in the end. I don't know why that defies logic. It's the odds on favorite of GS and they certainly don't have a problem getting the government to hand them billions just because they want it to.

The circus show isn't over yet as the abortion fiasco shows. Not by a long shot.

[ipaint]

29. Here we go.

Insurance exchange may have loophole
'A leak in the system'
Insurers could draw healthy people out of new markets


By David S. Hilzenrath
Sunday, November 15, 2009



"It's a leak in the system," said Karen L. Pollitz, a professor at Georgetown's Health Policy Institute. "It returns you to problems that we have today."

...For example, the bill written by the Senate health committee would not require insurers operating outside the marketplace to provide standardized disclosures about what they cover.

It would not prohibit health plans outside the exchanges from using marketing practices that discourage the seriously ill from enrolling, nor would it demand that they offer "a wide choice" of medical providers -- including "essential community providers . . . that serve predominantly low income, medically-underserved individuals," as the bill prescribes for insurers inside the exchanges.

Perhaps the sharpest dichotomy is that, under the health committee proposal, certain standards governing the nature and extent of covered benefits would apply only to policies sold inside the exchanges.

All of those factors contribute to the possibility that insurers might offer cheaper, less comprehensive policies outside the exchanges and entice healthier people to leave the new markets. That would leave the exchanges responsible for sicker people who are more expensive to insure.

Similarly, outside the exchange, the bill drafted by the Senate Finance Committee would not regulate the marketing of individual coverage, nor would it require that health plans be rated based on quality and price.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009111303160.html


The deck is stacked high in favor of GS. So much for the traditional legislative logic that operates in a democracy.

[ipaint]

12. Wall street killed the public option. It was either them or us, there is no inbetween.

"Heading into the health care debate, there was only ever one genuinely dangerous idea out there, and that was a single-payer system. Used by every single developed country outside the United States (with the partial exceptions of Holland and Switzerland, which offer limited and highly regulated private-insurance options), single-payer allows doctors and hospitals to bill and be reimbursed by a single government entity. In America, the system would eliminate private insurance, while allowing doctors to continue operating privately.

In the real world, nothing except a single-payer system makes any sense. There are currently more than 1,300 private insurers in this country, forcing doctors to fill out different forms and follow different reimbursement procedures for each and every one. This drowns medical facilities in idiotic paperwork and jacks up prices: Nearly a third of all health care costs in America are associated with wasteful administration. Fully $350 billion a year could be saved on paperwork alone if the U.S. went to a single-payer system — more than enough to pay for the whole goddamned thing, if anyone had the balls to stand up and say so.

Everyone knows this, including the president. Last spring, when he met with Rep. Lynn Woolsey, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Obama openly said so. "He said if he were starting from scratch, he would have a single-payer system," says Woolsey. "But he thought it wasn't possible, because it would disrupt the health care industry."

Huh? This isn't a small point: The president and the Democrats decided not to press for the only plan that makes sense for everyone, in order to preserve an industry that is not only cruel and stupid and dysfunctional, but through its rank inefficiency has necessitated the very reforms now being debated. Even though the Democrats enjoy a political monopoly and could have started from a very strong bargaining position, they chose instead to concede at least half the battle before it even began."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/2

[ellie]

15. That's funny!

ellie has concluded that the best thing for the country is no more Goldman Sachs! It's almost like symmetry or something.

[salguine]

18. Lumping Dennis Kucinich in with Goldman Sachs? My ignore list has already

swollen to unimaginable proportions; what's one more.

[SpartanDem]

19. For what pointing that DK voted with Wall St.

and to protect the insurance industries bottom line? But I guess we sit around pretending that it something principled. Fine ignore me act like a little child and don't bother to address the substance of this post.

[andym]

21. GS seems to show that the House Bill including a mandate is bad for the insurers.

At least if one values their stock prices, as investors do. I am sure GS would say just a mandate is fine, it's the rest of the bill that is problematic for the insurers.

Of course their analysis was on a bill like the House bill (not the actual bill)-- calling it the "Bear Day Scenario" sounds ominous for them. I wonder if they included the removal of the anti-trust exemption in this scenario.

[DailyGrind51]

27. Sure, bail-out Goldman, but not the uninsured?

[flpoljunkie]

28. Heath Insurance should not be 'for profit'--let alone sold on the stock market.

Why were they not prevented from doing so--Congress and federal regulatory agencies?