New study says 30% of employers may drop health insurance because of Affordable Care Act...(A closer look...)

  The last few days, several of the major media outlets, including (Wall Street Journal and Rueters), have reported the findings of a study done by the McKinsey Group. The claim that up to 30% of employers would drop health insurance benefits is dramatically higher than what other studies and even the White House projected. Turns out there's some reasons to be skeptical of their findings and conclusions.

 TIME Magazine's Kate Pickert did some research of her own into the methodology that McKinsey used. McKinsey's own article described it this way: "...the results were based on a survey of 1,300 employers varying in size from variety of industries and regions." There was no other information provided about how the study was conducted.

Pickert has some basic questions:

* How were the businesses chosen? An unbiased sampling method here is key. If the list of businesses was culled from Chamber of Commerce membership or McKinsey client lists, this is important to know. Ditto if the list was generated in a more randomized way.

* What was the response rate? And how were businesses surveyed? If 13,000 businesses were contacted, but only 1,300 responded, such a 10% response rate could call into question the results. Also, there is, for example, a huge difference between surveys conducted in person, over the phone and over the Internet.

* Lastly, this tidbit was included in the McKinsey Quarterly article about the survey: (Bold mine...)

“…our survey educated respondents about [employer sponsored insurance] implications for their companies and employees before they were asked about post-2014 strategies.”

In other words, those conducting the survey may have primed respondents to say they would keep or drop coverage.

I asked McKinsey if a third party paid for the survey and they said no. On my other questions – about the methodology and what script was used to “educate respondents” – they declined to comment.

With so much dis-information and agendas, both Pro and Con dominating the ongoing discussion about health care reform and the Affordable Care Act, its important we verify the methodologies of any studies, Pro or Con. Its frustrating to me see major news organisations not question the nuts and bolts of a study that seems to suggest an outcome that most other studies of this same issue haven't. If we knew all the details behind McKinsey's study, we'd know better how seriously to take their findings. When they throw down the "no comment" card, it makes me wonder why?

  The knowledge that they "educated respondents" before asking the questions makes me think of a "push-poll." (A push-poll is a type of illegitimate form of polling. Ex. "If you learned that the ACA has death panels in it, would you still support it?") Not very fair or useful in determining actual public or in this case, business attitudes towards the ACA...

Sources: 

http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/08/some-healthy-skepticism-of-the-mckinsey-study-on-employer-insurance/#ixzz1OpcCqpni

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304906004576371802092308600.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/mckinsey-healthexchanges-idUSN0712987420110607