Controversial McKinsey Health Care Study Creates Major Dissent At Firm

[Derechos]

The political damage to President Obama's health care law may already be done. But there's a curious backstory to the report this week from a major consulting firm study that found "ObamaCare" would lead to fairly dramatic unintended consequences.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company was thrust into the political spotlight Tuesday after it published a study -- at odds with the expert consensus -- finding that, once fully implemented, the health care reform law will drive huge numbers of employers to drop or dramatically restructure their companies' health care benefits.

The predictable fallout led Democrats, and several reporters, to press McKinsey for the survey itself -- a request McKinsey has declined on the grounds that the material is proprietary.

But multiple sources both within and outside the firm tell TPM the survey was not conducted using McKinsey's typical, meticulous methodology. Indeed, the article the firm published was not intended to give the subject matter the same authoritative treatment as more thorough studies on the same topic -- particularly those conducted by numerous think tanks, and the Congressional Budget Office, which came to the opposite conclusion. And that's created a clamor within the firm at high levels to set the record straight.

"This particular survey wasn't designed in away that would allow it to be peer review published or cited academically," said one source familiar with the controversy.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/multiple-sources-throw-controversial-mckinsey-health-care-study-under-the-bus.php?ref=fpa

[izquierdista]

1. A grain of salt?

Everything should receive a dose of healthy skepticism, including this survey. But it does cause one to wonder why the truckload of road salt has been dumped on it. :shrug: