Believe it or not...

...The Wall Street Journal is my home page. I won't go into the reason for that, but my first read this morning was "Historic Health Vote Looms," followed by "Change Nobody Believes In," the lead editorial. I really do try to read opposing points of view, and I wanted to see what The Journal had to say about the Senate health care bill.

A couple of paragraphs in, the editorial addressed the issue of cost. It says:

The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill.

Huh? The best and most rigorous cost analysis The Journal could find was by an insurance company? Gee, you don't suppose they have a dog in this fight, do you? And what do you suppose this analysis found? If you guessed that costs would rise then you guessed correctly. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office recently found that costs would actually go down.) But really, is that the best The Journal can do?

It kind of reminds me of that famous Lewin Group study cited by The Journal earlier this year. The study concluded that 88 million people would abandon the private insurers in favor of a public option. (The CBO's estimate was closer to five million.) Republicans were all over the airwaves citing the study until it was pointed out that, ahem, the Lewin Group is owned by United Healthcare. Oops.

The Wall Street Journal now has the widest circulation of any newspaper in the U. S. Millions of people are going to read that editorial today and refer to it around water coolers.

"I hear under this new health care bill, costs will go up."

"Really? How do you know?"

"Read it in the paper just this morning."

"Gee..."

How long will it be before word gets out that the CBO's findings are that costs will go down under this bill? Do you think people will ever read that in The Journal?