Under pressure, McKinsey releases insurance study methodology, concedes study not predictive

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by Joan McCarter
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/20/987037/-Under-pressure,-McKinsey-releases-insurance-study-methodology,-concedes-study-not-predictive?via=blog_1

After a week or two of really bad press and pressure from prominent Dems, McKinsey and Company has finally come clean, releasing its methodogy for the study. They assert that their findings are at odds with all the other studies done on the issue because "it captured the attitudes of employers and provided an understanding of the factors that could influence decision making" rather than economic studies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/mckinsey-releases-methodology-firm-concedes-study-not-predictive/2011/03/03/AGzDV9cH_blog.html

There will be a lot to dig through here, but what’s immediately of interest is that in its statement, McKinsey repeatedly concedes that the study should not be seen as a predictor of future behavior. While McKinsey says it stands by the study’s methodology, the statement repeatedly stresses its lack of predictive value. This seems like a way of dealing with the fact that many other studies — unlike McKinsey — found that there would be minimal impact on employer-sponsored insurance:

We stand by the integrity and methodology of the survey.

The survey was not intended as a predictive economic analysis of the impact of the Affordable Care Act. Rather, it captured the attitudes of employers and provided an understanding of the factors that could influence decision making related to employee health benefits.

As such, our survey results are not comparable to the healthcare research and analysis conducted by others such as the Congressional Budget Office, RAND and the Urban Institute. Each of those studies employed economic modeling, not opinion surveys, and focused on the impact of healthcare reform on individuals, not employer attitudes.

Comparing the McKinsey survey to economic estimates, such as the CBO’s, is comparing apples to oranges. While the McKinsey Quarterly article about the survey cited CBO estimates, any comparison is not apt. We understand how the language in the article could lead the reader to think the research was a prediction, but it is not.

Note the claim that the study only established factors that "could" influence employer decision-making on benefits later.

Of course, "readers" aren’t the only ones who saw the McKinsey study as a "prediction." It has been widely cited by opponents of the Affordable Care Act as just that.

Or as Jamison Foser tweets, "people thought McKinsey study was 'predictive'" because the title they used says so: "How US health care reform will affect employee benefits." Sounds like a prediction in my book.

McKinsey is toeing a careful line, mindful that they have to keep their reputation in order to keep getting business. That interpretation is reinforced by this observation of the controversy and McKinsey's action by Rick Ungar at Forbes. He point out that McKinsey is positioned to make "big bucks" as the firm to provide advice to companies navigating the new law "on the benefits of unraveling their complicated and extensive employee benefit plans and for assistance in executing any new plans for the same.... The findings were good for business—pure and simple."

So McKinsey is needing to explain away why their study is contradicted by every other study in order to maintain their very important credibility. And lucrative consulting contracts.

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1. Shorter McKinsey: "It Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement