You can find the actual report on the New York Times website and it doesn't say what Noah claims it says. What it actually says: 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 under the current system and by 40 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented. 50 percent between 2009 and 2016 under the current system and by 73 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented. 79 percent between 2009 and 2019 under the current system and by 111 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented. Not sure how you 'errata' an article that is entirely based on not reading your source properly, but I trust you'll get right on it.

Xando:

79 percent between 2009 and 2019 under the current system and by 111 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented. Not sure how you 'errata' an article that is entirely based on not reading your source properly, but I trust you'll get right on it.

111% - 79% = 32%, which is what Noah said:

Health reform would, according to the report, raise premiums 32 percent over the next 10 years. But without health reform, the study says, premiums would still rise—by 79 percent!

I'm assuming you're talking about this section:

That's where the Price Waterhouse Coopers study gets really interesting. Health reform would, according to the report, raise premiums 32 percent over the next 10 years. But without health reform, the study says, premiums would still rise—by 79 percent

Noah is citing the ten year projections between 2009 and 2019. Health care without the four provisions is expected to rise 79%. With them premiums are expected to rised 111%, or 32% more from the baseline than would occur without the options. 111%-79%=32%. If we were using an index to compare premiums with today's premium being 100, then in 2019 with no changes the premium would be 179 and the premium with changes would be 211. Those four options would therefore make health care premiums in 2019 18% greater than they would be without them.

Of course, as Noah noted in his article, Price Waterhouse Coopers conveniently neglects to do any analysis of cost saving measures so it gives no basis for calculating the complete impact of the bill.

Noah chose a way to present the information that is, at best, confusing. The 32 percent is measured with respect to one number and the 79 percent with respect to another number. But he makes it sound as if the two numbers are comparable. He is either trying to mislead or he is seriously suffering from innumeracy.

Remember Price Waterhouse Cooper has distanced itself from its own projections because they were not given all the data required to work with, particularly the savings that would come from the bill.

price waterhouse backed away from the report because they did not figure in the savings found in the baucus bill.

the insurance companies pay big bucks for a report and wonder of wonders it backs their claims.

what a surprise

kati:

Remember Price Waterhouse Cooper has distanced itself from its own projections because they were not given all the data required to work with, particularly the savings that would come from the bill.

They weren't given data on the savings (or even on the projected savings) because it's doubful that any such data exists (except maybe in Orszag's mind). Since most of the claims about all this potential savings are coming from the government, the details of where those savings are expected to show up should be publicly available, and yet there's nothing but the frequent claim that they will exist, and occasionally that they will allow the balancing of the federal budget without raising taxes on anyone but a small minority.

Also if the savings is in the form of reduced govermnet outlays (likely by shifting those costs onto the insurance industry), then there would be no savings to the insurance companies specifically. If it were truly possible to provide a higher quality of healthcare to more people for a fraction of what we currently spend, we'd already be doing it because it would be more profitable for the providers to do it that way.

bmgreene:

If it were truly possible to provide a higher quality of healthcare to more people for a fraction of what we currently spend, we'd already be doing it because it would be more profitable for the providers to do it that way.

To say that it would be more profitable for insurance monopolies to lower their premiums is a dubious proposition at best.

The US spends 16% of GDP on health care, more than any couintry on earth. All the other developed nations have achived universal health coverage while still spending less as a percent of GDP. Don't pretend that there isn't room to push that unsustainable cost curve down.

"If it were truly possible to provide a higher quality of healthcare to more people for a fraction of what we currently spend, we'd already be doing it because it would be more profitable for the providers to do it that way."

that rhetoric just doesn't work anymore. we learned throught the last melt down that bankers were not interested in the companies bottom line but their own bottom line.

as greenspan put it, " i believed ceo's would do what was best for their stockholders, instead they did what was best for themselves"

capitalism needs to be regulated or it degenerates into a mindset of individual selfishness and greed.

the ceo's of health care providers for the most part are not interested in the welfare of the corporation but only in their own welfare.

fryde67:

Noah chose a way to present the information that is, at best, confusing. The 32 percent is measured with respect to one number and the 79 percent with respect to another number. But he makes it sound as if the two numbers are comparable. He is either trying to mislead or he is seriously suffering from innumeracy.

So let me get this straight:

Instead of saying

Health reform would, according to the report, raise premiums 32 percent over the next 10 years. But without health reform, the study says, premiums would still rise—by 79 percent!

Noah should have said

Health reform would, according to the report, raise premiums 32 percent over the next 10 years. But that 32 percent increase would be on top of the 79 percent increase in premiums that the study projects will happen anyway.

Confusing and misleading wording, indeed. It almost reads as if the bill would reduce premiums by 47 percent (79 - 32) over the next 10 years.

Yes. To be really clear, though, I would have said "without the bill it will go up 79%, but with the bill it will go up 111%. Apples to apples comparison.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you turn journalism majors loose on numbers!

Yes. To be really clear, though, I would have said "without the bill it will go up 79%, but with the bill it will go up 111%." Apples to apples comparison.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you turn journalism majors loose on numbers!

religiouslib:

that rhetoric just doesn't work anymore. we learned throught the last melt down that bankers were not interested in the companies bottom line but their own bottom line.

as greenspan put it, " i believed ceo's would do what was best for their stockholders, instead they did what was best for themselves"

The thing about that, though is that the meltdown couldn't have happened without first inflating the bubble, and while that bubble was being inflated everyone from the bankers to the monday morning quarterbacks in the government (on both sides of the aisle) couldn't be vocal enough about how great it was that "homeownership" was being expanded so widely and so much "wealth" was being created. Guys like Greenspan were even marvelling at the creativity of the system for coming up with securitization, derivatives and swap contracts which had supposedly eliminated (or at least fully mitigated) risk within the financial system.

Nobody in government (none but a small handful in the private sector) was talking about the possible consequences of people buying houses they couldn't afford using loans they couldn't repay in many cases without putting anything down (and in some places many of these buyers were speculating rather than living in the houses on top of that); those few who did dare mention it in public were often ridiculed as a result. Greenspan had already learned in the late 1990's what response one gets when attempting to point out that there's a danger accompanying the price of anything going parabolic since at some point it will always revert to the longer-term norm, and now Goldman Sacs gets regularly and publicly flogged for among other things, understanding the dangers presented by the inflation of the housing bubble and reducing or eliminating their exposure to those risks before the inevitable came to pass.

I'm not going to argue that many of these execs truly deserve all the money they got (I would argue that prior to the Obama administration's intervention and direct management of the banks, every attempt by the government to regulate or restrict the growth of that compensation either did nothing at all or created an environment in which the truly ridiculous growth of that pay was able to happen), but I'm also not nearly ready to believe that the levels of compensation are in any way the root cause of the systemic and policy flaws which led to our current situation.

Would Citi be a profitable bank if Chuck Prince had been paid less? Would GM be a viable carmaker if Rick Wagoner's pay were lower? Would AIG have not imploded if Greenberg only made $5Mil per year?

bmgreene:

Nobody in government (none but a small handful in the private sector) was talking about the possible consequences of people buying houses they couldn't afford using loans they couldn't repay in many cases without putting anything down (and in some places many of these buyers were speculating rather than living in the houses on top of that); those few who did dare mention it in public were often ridiculed as a result.

Or the consequences of banks/shady mortgage companies selling houses to people they knew couldn't afford it (NINA loans) for the sole purpose of passing them on to Wall Street, who would make obscene money (probably some of those bonuses) by repackaging them as CDOs and other "toxic waste." I'm not saying there wasn't a huge push for increased home ownership, but let's be fair and assign the greed where it belongs.

pb53:

bmgreene:

Nobody in government (none but a small handful in the private sector) was talking about the possible consequences of people buying houses they couldn't afford using loans they couldn't repay in many cases without putting anything down (and in some places many of these buyers were speculating rather than living in the houses on top of that); those few who did dare mention it in public were often ridiculed as a result.

Or the consequences of banks/shady mortgage companies selling houses to people they knew couldn't afford it (NINA loans) for the sole purpose of passing them on to Wall Street, who would make obscene money (probably some of those bonuses) by repackaging them as CDOs and other "toxic waste." I'm not saying there wasn't a huge push for increased home ownership, but let's be fair and assign the greed where it belongs.

The premise of the predatory lenders (what you're describing, although they didn't always involve NINJA loans) was that they could get a few months of payments and make money on the price appreciation of the collateral (the house being mortgaged) when it came time to foreclos, plus they were insured for and could write-off "losses" from the failed loan on top of it. There was some uproar over predatory lending, but it was centered around the supposed harm done to the borrowers (even though when all was said and done many of them simply got to rent a house for a while and took a hit to thier credit rating, but those were often not stellar to begin with); the whole idea that anyone who gets kicked out of a house after defaulting on a zero-down negative-amortization loan has really lost much is hard to justify IMO (they're out a few house payments, but would have had to pay for housing somewhere during the time in question and since they began the loan with zero equity and fell behind every month after that there's no real claim to ownership).

The repackaging into CDOs was just a standard procedure by which the mortgage lenders got cash to make future loans and was done by reputable/ethical lenders as well as by the shady ones. Many of the lenders had some liability and accountability to the buyers of their securitized loans, those liabilities are what took down lenders like AHM and probably did some damage to Countrywide (although the bulk of CFC's subprime loans got securitized by Fannie/Freddie so it's the taxpayers who are now on the hook to guarantee those).

One of the biggest problems was actually independent mortgage brokers, many of whom had little training and less experience and were barely regulated (depending on the state, I know CA didn't really try to do much until 2008 at which point the shady ones were out of the business since there wasn't any easy money left to be made and 100% of the potential damage had been done); the shady brokers would coach unfit borrowers on what lies to tell to get approved for "Alt-A" loans and would take a comission from the deal with no ongoing accountability when they hooked up a doomed borrower with a lender who had ditched their underwriting standards (with the tacit approval if not active encouragement of the relevant government regulators).