Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif, writes to jump on the health care analysis from the Heritage Foundation.
Stark notes that it was written by a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, the Lewin Group, and offers his own point-by-point rebuttal.
“The Lewin Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, released a new study paid for by the ideologically conservative Heritage Foundation that uses several leaps in logic to suggest that a public health insurance option would dominate the health insurance market,” Stark says.
“The Lewin Group had offered earlier analyses funded by other organizations that greatly overstated the likely effect of a public option under health care reform as envisioned in HR 3200. Conclusions in the latest Lewin Group “analysis” continue to be based on faulty assumptions about how the Exchange and the public health insurance option would work, and are counter to the official estimates from Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“Unlike Lewin, which produces documents to respond to the requests of paying clients, CBO is an impartial, independent, non-partisan agency that has no financial incentive to provide misleading estimates. “
Pete Stark is an idiot. Even a five year old can fact check that Lewin isn't owned by UnitedHealthcare. They share a parent company (UnitedHealth Group)... Lewin runs independently...
Besides, both the CBO and any other analysis need to make some assumptions. There's nothing that makes the CBO numbers "official". Stark's office can spin and spread fear and smear all it wants... it won't make his bill look any better.
Posted by: Sparky | July 20, 2009 at 09:51 PM