Fewer Choices, Higher Costs: ObamneyCare©

Starting a new business is challenging enough, but navigating the maze of group insurance adds a whole new dimension. A frequent roadblock is the issue-and-participation requirement. This is a carrier rule based on the number of employees and how many opt for the group plan. Carriers justify this based on the concept of adverse selection (only sick people would sign up).

I recently met with the owners of a new company, and we quickly established that they'd be ineligible for a group plan based on participation requirements. Looking for alternatives, we wondered if a "stand-alone" Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) would do the trick.

A stand-alone HRA is basically a health care debit card funded by the employer. A typical design might be $500 per year per employee; the first $500 of one's medical expenses would essentially be borne by the employer. Unlike a qualified Health Savings Account (HSA), there was no requirement for an underlying health insurance plan.

We thought this would be a great option in this case: it would mean that at least some of an employee's medical expenses could be shifted off his or her shoulders.

Alas, ObamneyCare© has ruled this out:

"Health care reform requires most group health plans to provide minimum annual levels of coverage for “essential health benefits”  ... In 2014 group health plans will have to provide unlimited annual benefits for “essential health benefits” ... The government has ruled that most HRAs are considered group health plans for these purposes."

In other words, stand-alone plans would themselves have to be "unlimited," a rather daunting prospect for any business. Needless to say, this plan was a no-go.

So of course we can see how ObamneyCare© has increased choices and lowered costs across the board.

Or not.

[Hat Tip: FoIB Alissa C]

ObamneyCare© Glitch - IB Ahead of the Curve

Over two months ago, Bob noted that citizens in states that opted out of creating their own Exchanges would be ineligible for premium subsidies. Since so few states have thus far even begun exploring how to set up an Exchange, this has now hit the radar.

As Cato's Michael Cannon writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

"[Obamneycare©] offers "premium assistance"—tax credits and subsidies—to households purchasing coverage through new health-insurance exchanges ... [Obamneycare©] authorizes premium assistance in state-run exchanges (Section 1311) but not federal ones (Section 1321)."

Ooops.

So folks in states utilizing Exchanges run by the Federales will have a choice: buy (and pay for) unaffordable health insurance, or go to jail.

So not only didn't they read it before they passed it, they didn't even debug it.

Friday LinkFest

A veritable smorgasbord of interesting items:

■ First up, The Feds are starting to roll out new ObamneyCare© regulations in the hopes of answering lingering questions about implementation of this train-wreck.

Methinks they will generate more questions than answers.

■ FoIB Holly R sends us a pair of relevant stories. From The Atlantic, FoIB Avik Roy opines that ObamneyCare© proponents have it all wrong: the free market can provide the necessary answers to our health care financing and delivery woes.

■ She also tips us to the non-news that PresBo is still misrepresenting his own mother's health insurance "crisis;" apparently the man is incapable of differentiating between health insurance (which did, in fact, pay mom's health care bills) and disability insurance.

PresBo, lying? That's just crazy talk!

■ Bob D tips us to this little factoid:

"Computer Access to Patient Test Results Does Not Decrease Cost or Curtail Test Ordering"

So the digital age doesn't automatically cut costs? Hunh.

■ CareSource runs the Dayton (OH) Medicaid program; it's recently partnered up with Humana to "more effectively serve Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, particularly people who qualify for both programs." It's easy to see why Humana wants a piece of that action: they're a major player in the Cincinnati market, but not so much up the road here in Dayton.

■ And finally, loyal reader Patrick P points us to yet another Avik Roy piece, this one explaining the highly negative impact ObamneyCare© is already having on younger folks.

That's a wrap - Have a GREAT weekend!

Inside Baseball and ObamneyCare©: Is it a tax?

We've been pretty silent on the Constitutional fate of ObamneyCare© as it wends its way to the SCOTUS. For one thing, we've already made it perfectly clear how we feel about the (Evil) Individual Mandate, and the other myriad of problems inherent in the bill we had to pass to learn what's in it.

But today, the folks behind ObamneyCare© let slip the mask, and perhaps tipped their hand:

"In a hearing of the House Budget Committee ... pressed [Acting Budget Director Jeffrey] Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax. Eventually, Zients said it did not." [emphasis added]

Of course, characterizing the fine as a tax is what gets them under the Commerce Clause umbrella, and hence (potential) legitimacy. One wonders if Mr Z was inspired by Tom Brady.

ObamneyCare© vs Jobs (Redux)

Just a few months ago, we brought you the story of a mid-sized law firm which perfectly illustrated the jobs-killing effect of ObamneyCare©. Of course, proponents of nationalized healthcare would pooh-pooh this as a one-off, but would they be right?

Turns out, not so much:

"U.S. small-business owners who aren't hiring -- 85% of those surveyed -- are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees ... nearly half of small-business owners point to potential healthcare costs (48%)"

That only makes sense, of course: if you're a small business owner struggling merely to survive this oppressive economy, you're already well aware of how much your existing workforce's health insurance costs. Adding to that? Get real. And this is after just a couple of years of ObamneyCare©; imagine how much uncertainty will increase as we draw ever closer to 2014.

Another Broken Window

Last month, we discussed Bastiat's Fallacy of the Broken Window as it related to the vandalizing of one of those "evil" insurance companies. Today, FoIB Holly R alerts us to a more peaceful - yet no less destructive - incidence of economic vandalism.

This story is about a cottage industry growing by leaps and bounds as a result of ObamneyCare©'s crushingly expensive compliance regulations. For example:

"As part of [ObamneyCare©], new rules increase penalties if techs, nurses or even doctors see patients while their license is flagged in another state ... Redhage's IT startup -- called Provide Trust -- offers what amounts to a non-stop background check, and business is booming."

While this is certainly good news for Mr Redhage, it's bad news for the rest of us.

Why's that, you may ask?

Because just as in the case of Kaiser Permanente’'s literal broken window, dollars that must be spent on (for example) compliance regs are dollars that aren't being spent on actual, you know, care. And every hour that a doc or a nurse or a tech spends dealing with these reg's is one less hour being spent on, you guessed it, patients.

But then, ObamneyCare© was never really about the "care" in the first place.

POTUS and SCOTUS on Bizarro World

It's not enough, apparently, that the noted Constitutional Scholar-in-Chief doesn't understand the role of the Judiciary. Doubling down, President Obama is warning the Supreme Court that striking down ObamneyCare© will wreak havoc on Medicare, freezing that agency's "much vaunted" payment system.

Of course, this is exactly backwards from reality:

"About 65 percent of the cost of [ObamneyCare©] is supposed to be met by Medicare expense reductions"

That is, reducing the amount Medicare will pay providers, thereby exacerbating - not resolving - the current senior care issue. And yet the President and his minions continue to push the now debunked meme that gutting ObamneyCare© will somehow hurt Medicare even more.

The truth is, they've got this bass akwards:

"[B]y striking down the law, the Court would forestall $500 billion in Medicare cuts called for by Obamacare as well as deep slashes in Medicare Advantage."

Yeah, but that's just some blogger in his pajamas, right?

Well, no, that's "former CMS administrator Thomas A. Scully."

Unlike his successor, Ms Shecantbeserious, Mr Scully seems to have a clue.

FSA's meet ObamneyCare©

From email:

"On May 30, 2012, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a Notice on the new $2500 Limit on Health Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs). The Notice clarifies that this provision of [ObamneyCare©] applies to plans beginning after December 31, 2012 ...

The limit applies on an employee-by-employee basis rather than per household"

Currently, folks can contribute up to $5,000 per household to the health care portion of their Flex Account. Beginning next year, that gets slashed in half (unless one's spouse also has access to an FSA through his/her employer).

Just another ObamneyCare© tax increase.

[Hat Tip: Cigna]

Denial River

What is it with people completely ignoring reality? In this case, it's the folks at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Last time we checked, they'd just realized that ObamneyCare© is going to cost over $1.7 trillion to implement, or roughly double what they'd previously projected.

Their current delusion is that ObamneyCare© won't lead to the mass extinction of the group health insurance market, despite widespread evidence that it will:

"Forecasters at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ... are refusing to predict that [ObamneyCare©] will lead to a sharp drop in enrollment in employer-sponsored health plans ... will require most employers over a certain size to offer health coverage ... will permit the employers to get out of offering coverage by paying a penalty for each employee"

Hmmm, let's see: Tens of thousands of dollars and major administrative headaches to comply with constantly changing plan design rules, or a few thou in fines.

The technical term here is: easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

Open wide and say....ObamneyCare©

Writing in this month's issue of Health Insurance Underwriter magazine (not the swimsuit issue), Ameritas Sr VP Karen Gustin opines about how dental plans will fare under ObamneyCare©. We've addressed this issue before, when we took to task Companion Life's cave-in on "young adult" coverage. At the time, we pointed out that dental plans are specifically excluded from this requirement.

In fairness, what the law (purportedly) says and how it's implemented by HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious are often at odds, so it may not have been completely unreasonable for Companion to have acted pro-actively at the time.

Still, that was then, this is now, and Ms Gustin previews the year ahead as regards dental coverage under the current regime:

■ Dental care for children: as with the medical parts of ObamneyCare©, there will be a core "essential" benefits component, the make-up of which is still being considered.

■ Dependent tracking: this one's disturbing. New requirements will be rolled out detailing employers' responsibilities to track their employees' dependents and how (or even if) they're covered. This is part of new compliance requirements that, frankly, sound even worse than the Individual Mandate (who even thought that was possible?).

■ Fee integration: aka new taxes. 'Nuff said.

■ Employee education: aka Brainwashing. Ms Gustin's point is that the law (ostensibly) requires only juvenile coverage and there's concern that as they age off these plans, folks will forgo needed care. Or, as we call it, personal responsibility.

There's more, and the article is definitely worth the read. Maybe in the dentist's office?

[Hat Tip: SoIB Gail S]

TNR Swings....and misses

Reality is hard for progressives:

"[T]rue competition can't exist without regulation."

This is of a piece with Sen Reid's recent proclamation that "[m]illionaire job creators are like unicorns. They are impossible to find and don’t exist.”

Tell that to, say, the late Steve Jobs or the very much alive Noah Glass, or even Messrs Ben and Jerry. But the bigger picture is that it is the over-regulation of insurance that has led us to where we are.

Mr Cohn cites his colleague Aaron Carroll, who continues to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that MassCare works (and thus ObamneyCare© is destined to, as well). Mr Carroll's argument hinges on the fact that the individual medical insurance market uses actuarially sound underwriting, which results in folks who develop significant health problems being locked into existing coverage, with no hope of changing for the better.

[As an aside, he's absolutely correct that this is a problem, one exacerbated, rather than solved, by ObamneyCare©s stupid PCIP rules]

But Mr Carroll (and thus Mr Cohn) double down on the fail:

"[S]ince the law [then-Gov Romney] signed in Massachusetts did exactly that. It organized the individual market, so all that people buying on their own can choose from among a variety of plans that they know will provide basic coverage and will always be there for them when they need it."

It's always the half-truths with folks like this. Yes, MassCare "organized" the individual market, if by "organize" one means forcing insurers to flee the state (resulting in less - not more - competition); increasing premiums, elevating the Bay State to the top tier of state debt, and encouraging folks to game the system for (essentially) free health care.

All that, and they still end up reducing choices in health care.

That is the result of "regulating competition."

But of course there's a silver lining here, right?

Not so much:

"The Affordable Care Act does the same thing"

Boy, howdy.

The TNR Boys conveniently neglect to mention, of course, that regulation in the form of mandates continue to drive up health insurance costs. And, of course, ObamneyCare© essentially outlaws consumer-centric health plans (eg HSA's), further decreasing choice and increasing expense.

Good thing we passed it to learn what was in it.

[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]

It's for the ObamaKids©

Gotta give the proponents of ObamneyCare© credit: they're still pushing the lies. Hard. Having previously recruited Matlock to take the case to senior citizens, they've now taken aim at another kind of senior, 12th graders:

"In a press announcement released [Monday], HHS stated that HHS Secretary Kathleen [Shecantbeserious] and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “are reaching out to campus leaders to remind graduating high school, college and university seniors about their new health insurance options under [ObamneyCare©].”

Uh-hunh.

And what, exactly, are those options? Well, thanks to Kathy and her boss, child-only major medical plans are extinct (and have been for  a while). So-called "adult children" can snag a ride on their folks' policy, but at a greatly inflated cost. So much for flying the nest.

Irony abounds as well in that colleges are now dropping student health insurance plans (good riddance, by the way), leaving these new graduates with fewer choices than ever. And, of course, the employer mandate's going to leave them with fewer group health plan options.

But Henry, at least smaller employers will continue to offer affordable health insurance plans, what with the great ObamneyCare© tax breaks, right?

Um, no:

"Fewer small employers claimed the Small Employer Health Insurance Tax Credit in tax year 2010 than were estimated to be eligible ... According to employer representatives, tax preparers, and insurance brokers that GAO met with, the credit was not large enough to incentivize employers to begin offering insurance."

Shocking, ain't it?

Told ya so (v13+)

As we've long documented, ObamneyCare© creates many more problems than it (ostensibly) solves: fewer choices, higher costs, increased compliance issues, the list goes on. But that's just us, right? We're (obviously) industry shills with an axe to grind.

(Which, of course, doesn't change the fact that we've been right)

Well, then, how about some corroboration from an actual employer who can attest to all these things?

Keith Ashmus, a co-founding partner of Frantz Ward LLP, helps run a medium-sized law firm in Cleveland. Of their 120 employees, about 70 are attorneys, and the rest are there to keep things running smoothly. They've been participating in Medical Mutual of Ohio's COSE (Council of Smaller Enterprises) small group health insurance plan for some time, and been quite satisfied.

Unfortunately, they've now run into the buzz saw that is ObamneyCare©:

"With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, we have been concerned about compliance. Our high deductible plan has deductibles higher than what apparently will be permitted."

Like many firms, they've recognized the value of Consumer Driven Health Care plans, including Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). Unfortunately, these types of plans are taboo under ObamneyCare©, even though (or, perhaps, because) they work.

"By purchasing our plans through COSE, we have not had to pay a two percent premium tax on group health insurance as mandated under Ohio law."

While 2% may not seem like much, if one posits a $500,000 annual health insurance bill (a not unreasonable supposition), then that represents $10,000 in savings. It's unclear (but unlikely) whether that exemption will still be available through the Exchanges.

And so the firm has been choosing "grandfathered" renewal options in order to avoid the problem. The challenge, of course, is that this has become increasingly difficult, and expensive. Not to mention the fact that these will be phased out rather soon, anyway.

"Given our pay scale, it is unlikely that our employees will qualify for subsidies on any state exchange."

There are two issues implicit here: first, there's the tacit acknowledgement that they'll likely be doing away with their group plan altogether. Second, should Ohio choose to go with a Fed-run Exchange, there'll be no such subsidy available regardless of their employees' economic status.

"Then in 2018 and later, the administration of the so-called “Cadillac” tax appears likely to be incredibly burdensome to employers."

Quite right, and as Mr Ashmus notes, this will be a double-whammy: first, there's the added expense of calculating the various expenses and such, and then reporting these to the carrier, which must then determine whether or not a tax is due (and don't forget that the added expense for this "service" will be borne by the employer, not the carrier). Finally, if there is, in fact, a tax due, well, someone's got to pay it, and (again) it won't be the carrier.

One more item I found interesting: with all the emphasis and press on so-called "wellness" programs, the nagging question has always been "and so?" Well, here 'tis:

"In an entity as small as ours, the positive impacts of wellness programs are unlikely to be felt in our health care costs, since community rating puts everyone’s experience together.":

This is the ugly little secret: unless you have a self-funded plan, your rates are determined primarily by the experience of the pool in which you've been placed. So even though your group may have had a "good" year, your rates are going to go up to offset the sicker groups.

But here's the real problem, also neatly put by Mr Ashmus:

"The uncertainty about what will happen with the Affordable Care Act ... is a definite barrier to planning for our insurance benefit program and expansion of our firm."

This goes beyond just the insurance issues, of course; how does one plan if there's so much doubt about whether or not what you choose today will be doable, or even legal, tomorrow?

Perhaps someone should have read it before they passed it.

[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]

More ObamneyCare© Lies

The folks behind ObamneyCare© can't make their case legitimately, so they continue to offer up frauds as exemplars.

Latest case in point:

"A Des Moines woman who publicly thanked President Barack Obama on Tuesday for helping her obtain health insurance actually is receiving her coverage through a long-standing state program."

Regular readers won't be surprised, of course, but it's a great object lesson for those on the fence about the existing safety net's availability and efficacy. In this case, a former lawyer (why am I not surprised?) allegedly lost her health insurance along with her job a couple of years ago.

The story gets fishy after that:

"She bought private coverage for her two children"

Really? From whom? We know that the child-only health insurance market started drying up in mid-2010. Was Ms Ibson one of the lucky few whose kids snuck in under the wire?

The mystery deepens:

"[She] could not find it for herself."

Again, why is that? Was COBRA continuation available from her former employer and, if so, why didn't she take it? She claims that "[n]o one would insure me because of my pre-existing conditions," but offers no explanation as to what they are (were?) or with whom she applied.

Why is that?

And then there's this whopper:

"In fact, Ibson’s current coverage is provided by HIP Iowa, a state program for people whose health problems make them ineligible for most commercial insurance."

The program's been around for some 25 years, so it's not as if it needed any boost from DC. Nor is it a net drain on the taxpayer (unlike PCIP): "Most of the program’s subsidies come from fees paid by commercial insurers."

Heh.

There are two major issues with stories like this: first, that the media laps them up uncritically and second, that they so often turn out to be based on lies (or at least obfuscation).

Death Panels slog on

There has never been any real dispute that ObamneyCare© will, in fact, reduce health care choices. When the power to decide who's treated (and lives) is granted to the state, personal choice goes away. We've seen this under the MVNHS©, and now we're seeing even more evidence that this is the goal of ObamneyCare©:

"MPAC [Medicare Payment Advisory Commission], whose decisions have the force of law, has voted to impose drastic pay cuts on all doctors under Medicare ... The cuts will effectively reduce the real pay for specialists by 50% over the next ten years ... and cut general practitioners' pay by one-third over ten years"

The net effect of these cuts will be, of necessity, a dramatic reduction in the number of primary care docs willing to see Medicare patients, and even fewer specialists willing to treat them. This is often called rationing, but I think it's even worse: it's relegating the most vulnerable among us, those who have "paid their dues" and relied (perhaps unrealistically) on the implied contract that required them to pay Medicare taxes for all those years.

In the longer term, though, this bodes ill for those under 65, as well. For one thing, it demonstrates conclusively that the aforementioned contract is binding only on the citizenry (death, taxes and all that). But consider this: if reimbursement rates are slashed, then physicians' incomes are reduced. So where's the incentive to spend all that time and money in medical school? If there's no realistic path to financial success, then we've explicitly said "my son the doctor? Oh, I hope not!"

Baby, bathwater, some assembly required.

MLR vs SCOTUS: Under the radar

As we wait breathlessly for the SCOTUS decision on ObamneyCare©, I'll engage in some completely baseless (but fun) speculation. We've written extensively on the stupidity that is MLR (Medical Loss Ratio), and FoIB Holly R sent us this link on the latest:

"Health insurance plans owe $1.1 billion in rebates ... Millions of consumers and businesses will receive $1.1 billion in rebates this summer from health insurance plans that failed to meet a requirement of the new health-care law"

Thus sayeth HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious.

As an aside, do "professional journalists" and/or "editors" actually proofread the stuff they spit out? It would appear not, since they seem to be saying that Madame Secretary envisions checks totaling multiples of billions of dollars ("Millions of consumers" will be getting checks for "$1.1 billion"). On the other hand, given the current regime, maybe that's just the next Spendulus.

Compounding this idiocy is that Madame Secretary and her minions have no idea how many rebates will be "earned," let alone the total dollar value. I guess we'll have to send out the checks to see how many - and how much - they are.

But here's the piece that has me chuckling: the naysayers claim that if SCOTUS scuttles ObamneyCare©, “adult children” will be booted off parents’ insurance, policies will be rescinded willy-nilly, and other assorted clamors of doom.

So here's my question: in that scenario, wouldn't those who received MLR-generated rebates have to return them to the carrier(s)? And yes, I'm quite serious. Sauce for the goose, and all that.

CLASS Warfare

Well, it only took seven-plus months, but the MSM has finally caught up with us:

"[G]overnment experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators."

Actually, we could have saved these investigators some time (and the taxpayers some cold hard cash), if they'd only simply read this:

"[A] plan that's guaranteed issue, with (ostensibly) no waiting or elimination period and "unlimited" benefits is not exactly a candidate for "most stable rates." In fact, the only real "certainty" is that rates will increase, perhaps quickly and dramatically, as those least able to find real long term care insurance (LTCi) flock to the government plan."

But we weren't even the first to draw this (rather obvious) conclusion:

"Seems like a recipe for disaster to me," William Marton, a senior aging policy official in the administration, wrote in an October 2009 email."

The problem, as both Mr Marton and our own fine selves pointed out, is that this type of plan will attract those least able to qualify for underwritten plans. That is, only the least healthy are going to want to sign up for a plan with a five-year waiting period, coupled with rates based on guaranteed acceptance. It is a recipe for disaster, which has been long known and discussed.

And there's this: recall that one of the most contentious pieces of ObamneyCare© is the (Evil) Mandate. The ostensible justification for the Mandate is that, without it, the guaranteed issue and community rating aspects won't fly. And so it may very well be for the CLASS(less) Act: without a mandate that all eligible workers participate, the program is unsustainable.

Of course, like everything else in ObamneyCare©, we had to pass it to learn just how awful it is.

Health Insurers making out fine, thank you

Before it flip-flopped on ObamneyCare©, the Association of Health Insurance Plans (AHIP - an industry lobbying group) was "all in" on nationalizing health care. Eventually, its members appeared to "see the light," and backed off its blatant support.

Or did they?

Well, the various carriers which make up AHIP's membership seem to be doing quite well by ObamneyCare©, even as the agents which represent them take a major haircut. According to the Washington Post:

"[T]he nation’s major health insurers have prospered in large part by expanding their role in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ... The share of large insurers’ revenues contributed by their Medicare and Medicaid business has jumped from 36 to 42 percent over the past three years."

That's about a 15% increase. Now, what happened three years ago that might have somehow affected health insurers and how they do business?

'Tis a mystery, that.

Now, I have no particular problem with carriers making hay off their Medicare/Medicaid business (I want them to be around to pay my claims, after all). The problem lies in this little tidbit:

"[T]he private companies are hired to run managed-care plans as an alternative to the traditional fee-for-service plans provided by the two programs ... The practice is attractive to states seeking to curb spending on Medicaid, which is funded with a combination of state and federal dollars"

So we're basically paying taxes and insurance premiums for the same service(s). Does this seem right to you?

[Hat Tip: FoIB Holly R]

MassCare© = RomneyCare© = ObamneyCare©

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ObamneyCare©'s biggest fan:

Thursday Morning LinkFest

■ First up, FoIB Jeff M tips us to this rather sorry Tar Heel State of affairs:

"[North Carolina] one of the least competitive health insurance markets"

Apparently there are just two viable "competitors" left in the state, The Blues and UHC. And that's before ObamneyCare© goes into full effect.

■ Next, one of my favorite health policy wonks, Cato's Mike Cannon, pens a fascinating take-down of what we call ObamneyCare©. Here's a sample:

"During the initial debate over ObamaCare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously said, “We have to pass [it] so you can find out what’s in it.” One irreverent heir to Hippocrates quipped, “That’s what I tell my patients when I ask them for a stool sample.” The similarities scarcely end there…"

■ And finally, we've posted quite a few times on the inherent tension between insurable interest, stranger owned life insurance, and life settlements. Now Sheriff Joe's adoptive home state is getting in on the act:

"The life settlement industry is welcoming a pair of recent Delaware Supreme Court decisions ... the court has affirmed the common law ability of a legally insured person or insurable trust to sell a policy on that person's life for market value."

There are the usual caveats, but at last we're seeing a bit of common sense being brought to the subject.