Goldman Sachs To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best

[babylonsister]

It's all about the profits. :puke:

Edit to add: So sorry about the dupe. Now I see this has been posted numerous times in numerous places. :crazy:


Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best
First Posted: 11-12-09 05:12 PM | Updated: 11-13-09 12:02 AM
Sam Stein


A Goldman Sachs analysis of health care legislation has concluded that, as far as the bottom line for insurance companies is concerned, the best thing to do is nothing. A close second would be passing a watered-down version of the Senate Finance Committee's bill.

A study put together by Goldman in mid-October looks at the estimated stock performance of the private insurance industry under four variations of reform legislation. The study focused on the five biggest insurers whose shares are traded on Wall Street: Aetna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, CIGNA and Humana.

The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman's analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive the legislative process, is described as the "base" scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010 through 2019. And yet, the "variance with current valuation" -- essentially, what the value of the stock is on the market -- is projected to drop four percent.

Things are much worse, Goldman estimates, for legislation that resembles what was considered and (to a certain extent) passed by the House of Representatives. This is, the firm deems, the "bear case" scenario -- in which earnings per share for the top five insurers would decline an estimated one percent from 2010 through 2019 and the variance with current valuation is projected to be negative 36 percent.

What the firm sees as the best path forward for the private insurance industry's bottom line is, to be blunt, inaction.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Goldman Was Also Driving The Real Estate Bubble, While

betting their own cash on a real estate crash.

I'm not sure that I'd listen to anything from them.

[geek tragedy]

2. Goldman wasn't driving the real estate bubble, but they did

cash in on the misery by betting on its collapse.

They know their stuff. Evil, but they know where the money is.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. I Think They Helped Drive It

e.g., http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print

[geek tragedy]

7. A lot of that stuff about Goldman gets overblown.

Stuff like the housing bubble is too vast for one firm to engineer. Goldman didn't force Countrywide and WaMu and IndyMac and Wachovia and Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch and Citigroup to pump air into that bubble.

I don't want to sound like they're good guys--they're not. But, no one's as smart as Taibbi makes them out to be.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. This makes Dennis Kucinich a tacit corporatist. (nt)

[countmyvote4real]

5. I don't get it. ? n/t

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. Dennis chose no reform at all over the House plan (aka Goldman's worst case scenario).

That means he tacits supports the corporatist position - that nothing is better than the House bill as it was.

[babylonsister]

9. This thread isn't about Kucinich. He's been bashed plenty on other

threads. Use your anger against Goldman Sachs, if anything.

[KittyWampus]

10. same thought came to me as well.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. If you say so, fine, but...

They're two sides of the same coin. Also, forgive me if I use any opportunity to backlash against Kucinich - I'm merely tired of hearing how the world would be so much better if he were in charge.

[ananda]

8. The fox sez to the wolf.

These are the tastiest dammed, most gullible, chickens ever!