It actually seems strange to me to limit this to simply four lies, but for the sake of this post I have to because - truth be told - I didn't compile this list, the New York Post did. Only in their versions all of these "Lies" about ObamaCare, were made by Obama.
ObamaCare's Four Biggest Lies
And it gets even worse when the first of those lies, comes with backing from Michael Moore as he tries to argue in his own New York Times Op-ed, that we should have gone Single Payer or at least Public Option in the first place.
Lie #1: “Affordable” Care. Even the president’s ideological allies — like Michael Moore — acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act is far from inexpensive for most Americans and that it “risks being a cruel joke.”
For average Americans, the results are prohibitively expensive. “The cheapest plan available to a 60-year-old couple making $65,000 a year in Hartford, Conn., will cost $11,800 in annual premiums,” according to Moore’s math, as published in a New York Times editorial. “If both become seriously ill, they might have to pay almost $25,000 in a single year.”
What was I saying about the dangers of Friendly Fire a few days ago? As I predicted Conservatives are using Moore's criticisms of the ACA not being
progressive enough as yet another excuse to try and scrap the entire thing - which is exactly the opposite of what Moore's point was. Sometimes it doesn't pay to hand your opponents a loaded verbal gun, because they don't generally tend to show restraint - or comprehension - in using it against you.
Wading through the validity of Moore's assumptions, even without the context of knowing what that couple [who would very likely have several pre-existing conditions at that age] would have to pay on the Individual market without the ACA, the first thing is that IMO a couple making that much wouldn't be eligible for subsidies and would have to pay the majority of their premiums entirely out of their own pocket, so as Jamie Hyneman would say "There's Your Problem" right there.
Plugging in the example Moore describes into AccessHealthCT.com gives back a list of 16 Plans, the least expensive is an Anthem Bronze Direct Access w/HSA plan which has a monthly premium of $1003 and an annual deductible of $12,600, with 0% Copay and $150 per Emergency Room Visit. So first of all he's actually wrong about the Connecticut Premiums, they would be $12,036 per year. (12 x $1003) but this plan also has a yearly out-of-pocket maximum of $12,700 which I do believe would include the deductibles for the entire plan, not just each individual. If both became sick they'd have to pay their premiums ($12k) plus the maximum allowable yearly out-of-pocket cost ($12.7k) for a grand total of $24k in that year. That would also be true even if just one of them became sick enough to exhaust that deductible.
But this is just about the worst possible scenario. If you take the couples income down to $62,000 per year they become potentially eligible for a tax credit of up to $951.58 per month. When I browse forward to the plan prices, which now include the tax credit their costs drop from $1003 per month to $468.43 with a $6000 deductible ($30 Copay, $150 Emergency Room) for an Anthem Silver DirectAccess Standard Plan, which puts them at $5,616 for yearly premiums and topping out at $11k for their likely yearly out-of-pocket costs if they happen to exhaust their deductible. This is Less Than Half the cost that Moore (mostly accurately) describes for people over $65K.
Here's the thing, the estimated median income for Hartford CT, in 2011 was $29,169, estimated per capita income in Hartford is $16,062 so in both these scenarios we're talking about people who make more than twice the median salary for that area which is a long, long way from typical. I mean, really - this is like about finding a Leprechaun riding a Unicorn in your backyard and complaining that he's merely one member of a herd that's been tramping your daisies. This isn't a Credible Common Scenario.
Far more people in that area are going to be in the $62k and below zone than the $65k and above. To pretend that this fairly extreme example is the standard that everyone should expect, is a GROSS DISTORTION of the facts for most people who would seek their insurance care through AccesHealthCT.com
The fact is that for a vast majority of people, the cost of their Health Care has already been coming down according to CMS.
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) will brief reporters at the National Press Club on what the Obama administration has touted as a trend of slower healthcare spending growth since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The November report said healthcare spending between 2010 and 2013 grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent. That’s the lowest rate dating back to 1965, when the metric was first calculated.
...
The slowdown in healthcare costs stretches across Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers, according to the report. The White House said this was evidence the reduction in spending is due to more than just a slow economic recovery.
“The fact that the health cost slowdown has persisted so long even as the economy is recovering, the fact that it is reflected in health care prices — not just utilization or coverage, and the fact that it has also shown up in Medicare — which is more insulated from economic trends, all imply that the current slowdown is the result of more than just the recession and its aftermath,” wrote Jason Furman, the chairman of the CEA.
Let's also note that the ACA, due to it's 80% Medical Loss Ratio requirement has already generated $Millions in
rebates for many customers.
An estimated 8.5 million Americans will receive rebates from their health insurers this summer thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which says companies that fail to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on health care must refund the difference to consumers.
Alright then, moving on.
Lie #2: It will prevent people from going into debt.
Patients with cancer and conditions such as multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease can now get insurance and financial but if annual out-of-pocket costs run much higher than expected, they might have to go into debt.
“There are certainly challenges for cancer patients,” said Brian Rosen, a senior vice president of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. These gaps “need to be addressed in order to fulfill the intention of the Affordable Care Act.”
Yes, it's true patients with Chronic Conditions do face challenges. However things aren't as challenging as they used to be. These patients can now
change plans if they like because they can no longer be barred by insurance companies because of a "pre-existing condition". Insurance companies can no longer implement a "Lifetime Spending Cap" and cut these patients off from care after it becomes too expensive. The yearly out-of-pocket cap for an individual under the ACA is $6,350. (or $12,700 as mentioned above for a Family) That includes the total for Co-Pays, Deductibles, Emergency Room Visits and Prescriptions (although not Premiums, which are extra).
Yes, certainly someone could indeed go into debt with $6k in yearly medical bills. But then it's also true that the actual cost of treating Chronic diseases like Leukemia or Lymphoma would - if the patient had to pay them out of their own pocket - quickly skyrocket into $150,000 to $1,000,000. Chemotherapy drugs can cost as much as $10,000 per month. Relatively speaking, $6K in maximum deductible/co-pay expenses per year is rather small.
The goal wasn't to keep people from going into any kind of debt, it was to avoid that debt becoming so crushing that it forced people into Bankruptcy. Which even today is caused mostly by Medical Expenses.
Lie #3: ObamaCare will lower costs overall.
The idea that people with medical insurance go to the emergency room less, and thus, help to reduce the overall cost of health care, isn’t necessarily true, as a study of Oregon Medicaid recipients has shown.
Ok, let's assume that this Oregon Medicaid study is true, even though the Post article doesn't include a link to it. [They don't provide any links, not even to the Moore Op-ed] Doing my own Googling
I found this.
In 2008, Oregon initiated a limited expansion of a Medicaid program for uninsured, low-income adults, drawing names from a waiting list by lottery. This lottery created a rare opportunity to study the effects of Medicaid coverage using a randomized controlled design.
...
We find that Medicaid coverage significantly increases overall emergency use by 0.41 visits per person, or 40 percent relative to an average of 1.02 visits per person in the control group. We find increases in emergency-department visits across a broad range of types of visits, conditions, and subgroups, including increases in visits for conditions that may be most readily treatable in primary care settings.
Let me just take a blind stab and suggest that you may see an increase in Emergency Room Visits by people on Medicaid because people without healthcare
Don't Tend to Go to the Doctor, even when they NEED To. The view here seems to be that people on Medicaid are somehow abusing their Emergency Room privileges and turning into hypochondriacs once they have a healthcare option, compared to when they didn't.
Yes, people will use the Emergency Room even for conditions that are potentially treatable by primary care physicians, because for one thing - depending on the state - just being on Medicaid doesn't mean you get automatic access to a Primary care physician when you need one. In many cases, even when you have coverage, the Emergency Room is your best option, because most of them perform triage of the most critical and less critical patients. Quite often in my own personal experience the less critical patients who come to the ER are simply given a referral for an office visit the next day, and sometimes that's the fastest way to GET an office visit when you're dealing with certain fairly overcrowded County/State funded systems. But that's not how wingers see it.
"When you make ER care free to people, they consume more of it. They consume 40 percent more of it," says Michael Cannon, head of health policy for the libertarian . "Even as they're consuming more preventive care. And so one of the main arguments for how Obamacare was going to reduce health care costs is just flat out false."
But I think this assumption is working on a number of false premises. First of all, the reason Emergency Room care is more expensive isn't simply because it happens
in the Emergency Room rather than in a regular doctor's office, it's because people with preventable and correctable conditions
don't get treated until their situation becomes fully
catastrophic and trying to do
dramatic rescue of that person is much more expensive than catching the problem earlier would have been. So in my mind, the fact that an increase in Medicaid access meant that some people with preventable issues were seeking
more care sooner is generally a good thing that should reduce costs because it should help avoid those conditions becoming more chronic. The fact that it was in this office versus that office, is missing the point.
This Oregon study, while noting the Emergency Room visits went up, does not look at how many potentially chronic problems were caught early as a result of those visits - so the conclusion that this trend would either increase or decrease overall costs is not exactly proven either way. Not yet.
What it does show is one important thing, people who have access to care - GET CARE - and exactly where is the downside in that? Is the position of the anti-ObamaCare crowd that people should be rationed from their trying to access too much care? It seems to me one side-effect of this phenomenon of people having care, actually using the care they have, is that their more likely To be Healthy than they would have been. When exactly did that stop being a worthwhile goal?
Furthermore, when it comes to costs, the CBO has repeatedly pointed out that Repealing the ACA would cost more than it would save.
Assuming that H.R. 6079 [House ACA Repeal number #322.5] is enacted near the beginning of fiscal year 2013, CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting that legislation would cause a net increase in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period. Specifically, we estimate that H.R. 6079 would reduce direct spending by $890 billion and reduce revenues by $1 trillion between 2013 and 2022, thus adding $109 billion to federal budget deficits over that period.
It's not just that spending on the Medicaid Expansion and Exchanges are less than the various revenues [Excise tax on "Cadillac Plans", IRS Penalty for Non-Compliance] but also because the ACA performs structural changes that would reduce the overall cost of Healthcare for the government, particularly with Medicare.
The ACA also includes a number of other provisions related to health care that are estimated to reduce net federal outlays (primarily for Medicare). By repealing those provisions, H.R. 6079 would increase other direct spending in the next decade by an estimated $711 billion.
That is a Cost Reduction of 7/10's of a $Trillion, that those who oppose the ACA would simply - throw away.
Ok, the last - and most pathetic - Lie.
Lie #4: More Americans will be insured.
Approximately 2.8 million Americans have signed up for new health-care plans since the Affordable Care Act went into effect on Jan. 1. That’s less than the 3.3 million the federal government predicted would sign up, and is also dwarfed by the 4.7 million whose insurance policies have been cancelled as a result of the overhaul.
Geez, that's just lame. I mean, are they even
trying here?
As many of us know the 2.8 Million [technically 2.1 Million according to Brainwrap at ACASignups.net, but hey - these are their claims, so I'm gonna roll with it] are only those who've signed up for Private Care so far. People are continuing to signup as I type this. It was the CBO that projected 3.3 Million, and that was without anticipating the 36 States would refuse to set up their own Exchanges forcing one single Federal Site to try and handle the entire load itself, which it couldn't for the first couple months. That was also before they realized that the Federal Site would be targeted by 16 Different Cyber Attacks, because even with the site having it's own internal issues and problems, that didn't exactly Help Things Any.
But this number doesn't include those who've gained coverage through the Medicaid Expansion, which happens to have been the subject of the previous lie claim, and is currently estimated at 4.4 Million via ACASignups.net..
If you include young adults under 26 who've been able to remain on their parents insurance you can add another 3.1 Million.
So that math works out to 2.8 + 4.4 + 3.1 for a total of 10.3 Million who currently have Health Care who didn't before the ACA. [Or 9.6 Million according to Brainwrap] Naturally of course, that's bigger than the 4.7 Million who the Post says "Lost" their coverage, but the thing is that most of them didn't lose coverage at all - their coverage may have changed but it didn't go away. In fact, Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have released a report that completely undermines the claim of "4.7 Million Losing Coverage" - and shows that those who actually can't keep or replace their coverage are only about 10,000.
Obamacare’s detractors have argued that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage due to the changes introduced by Obamacare. But according to a new analysis, this ignores counterbalancing policies in the law. The report finds that less than 10,000 people will lose coverage coverage without an immediate and affordable replacement.
The paper, put together on behalf of ranking member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and other the Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, takes as its starting point a recent Associated Press report that 4.7 million Americans will see their current coverage cancelled. Critics of Obamacare have used this and other reports to play conceptual games, allowing the technical “cancellation” of a plan to imply a consumer will lose all coverage entirely and be left out in the cold. But for the vast major that 4.7 million, the cancellation of a plan simply means a shift into a new and often better form of coverage.
So by my math, that's still - even using ACASignups.net's softer 9.6 Million figure - About
9.6 Million people Served with Health Care who didn't have it before.
So what have we learned class?
#1 Yes, for most people the ACA will be "Affordable" even if a few people - who in all likelihood already had expensive plans - will not necessarily see a benefit.
#2 No, the ACA won't prevent anyone from possibly going into debt but then it didn't promise that - however, it does limit the extent & size of that debt and doing so is an attempt to prevent them from going into Bankruptcy, which is far more likely to succeed.
#3 Yes, ObamaCare has already lowered costs, and will continue to do so.
#4 Yes. Over 9 Million People now have HealthCare Coverage as a result of the ACA, who didn't have it before, and nearly all those who had it before - can still get it even if the costs and benefits may have changed for them somewhat, mostly for the better.
And still No Death Panels, Also.
Vyan