Well, AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) is out this morning with a "study" by Price Waterhouse whatever, saying that premiums will go up for the insured under the Baucus bill:
Premiums for a single person would go up by $600 more than would be the case without the legislation, the PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis concluded in the study commissioned by the insurance group.
msnbc
The White House and Senate Finance Committee are attacking this "study":
"It's a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple," said the [Sen. Fin. Comm] spokesman, Scott Mulhauser.
msnbc
Maybe it's an opportunity, though. More after the fold.
Doesn't this expose the risk we take leaving our insurance in private hands? Who's going to stop rate increases as insurance companies feast on all of us, like vultures on carrion?
This "study" just shows what we already know. True, false, whatever, it does not matter. Regardless, the insurance companies will manipulate and buy politicians and regulators. They have a gravy train and the CEOs and shareholders are not giving it up. We're going to get screwed one way or another, unless we smash Big Insurance now!
They only way to ensure that prices stabilize and we cut the rate of increase in health care costs is a robust public option alternative for all people!
I think AHIP just made our case.
Paging Senator Rockefeller and Congressman Grayson!
We need this truth to be told loudly and often!
Public option for all is the only way! We simply cannot trust the murder by spreadsheet industry.
Update I: Anyname in this comment provides us some quotes from Congressman Anthony Weiner on Huffington Post that appear to see the same things as this diary:
Rep. Anthony Weiner: best case for public option (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by:TomP
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
EXCERPT
One of the most high-profile progressives in the House of Representatives argued on Monday that a new insurance lobby report disparaging the Senate's main reform effort gives an unexpected and strong boost to hopes for passing a public option.
Appearing on MSNBC, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) was asked about the hot news of the day on the health care front: a new report commissioned by America's Health Insurance Plans, which concluded that, under the Senate Finance Committee's legislation, family premiums would rise more than $4,000.
While dismissing the report's findings as typical of an industry that seeks to protect its profits, the New York Democrat also made a fairly salient point. The analysis basically assumes that insurers will raise their rates because the finance committee won't make the pool of consumers more desirable for them. All of which lays out the logical case for providing consumers with a cheap and available alternative, set up and administered by the federal government.
"I think in a strange way and obviously they didn't mean this, the health insurance lobby fired the most important salvo in weeks for the option," said Weiner. "Because they have said clear as day... they'll raise rates 111%."
This is not a free market. If your appendix ruptures you don't have the option to treat a different cheaper organ. - Rep. Anthony Weiner
by anyname on Mon Oct 12, 2009 at 10:52:44 AM PDT
(my bolding added). Thanks, Anyname
Update II: From Jed on Daily Kos TV, More from Congressman Weiner on msnbc.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) says a new report by AHIP claiming the Baucus bill will increase health insurance costs by 111% illustrates the importance of a public option for reducing costs:
If you have the health care industry complaining that we’re going to raise costs because of these changes, it is them putting us on notice that we haven’t put enough cost containment in the bill. You know, the health care industry themselves is putting out a whole report saying that. That should be a tell to the Baucus team that you know what, maybe it’s time for them to go back and revisit the public option.
In a strange way, and look, obviously they didn’t mean this, the health insurance lobby today fired the most important salvo in weeks for the public option, because they have said, as clear as day, left to their own devices, according to their own number crunchers, they’re going to raise rates 111%. And that’s why, you know we have a petittion at CountdownToHealthCare.com where we’re telling people for the moderates in the Senate, the so-called moderates, and for the White House, we need the public option, and the health care industry is making our argument for us.
Daily Kos TV