By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star editorial page columnist

It's pretty hard to put much stock in a report when the author starts backing away from it almost before the ink is dry.

From today's Washington Post, talking about a report commissioned by America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, and put together by the client services firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The report was trumpeted as an analysis of the Senate Finance Committee's health care reform bill. But:

As the report has come under fire, PricewaterhouseCoopers has distanced itself somewhat from it. The firm said Monday that AHIP had instructed it to focus on only some features of the bill, while not taking into account other major features such as the effect of subsidies for those buying insurance.

"America's Health Insurance Plans engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to prepare a report that focused on four components of the Senate Finance Committee proposal," the company said in a statement. "As the report itself acknowledges, other provisions that are part of health reform proposals were not included in the PwC analysis."

The report was advertised as saying the Finance Committee bill, also known as the Baucus bill, would increase insurance premiums by anywhere from $1,500 to $4,000 a year.

But what it really said is that premiums would increase by that much if you consider only some factors, and leave out the ones that would offset the increase.

That's checkbook research, for sure. But the speed with which the researchers retreated makes me wonder if they'll have to return the check.

Probably not.

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