Our response to the New York Post column entitled “Perils of Obamacare: The Three Big Lies“.
Lie #1 – Millions of Americans will be FORCED to change insurance plans
Truth: No one will be forced to change insurance plans. The House bill sets forth specifics for the insurance exchange, and includes the public option as one of those exchange plans. The specifications for the insurance exchanges are parallel to current industry standards.
Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell knows this. Listen to his office admit that no one will be forced into any plan:
(via The Political Carnival)
More Resources:
Investors’ Business Daily Lied To You!
Lie #2 – You will pay more
Truth: We don’t know what the true costs and savings will be. There are only predictions and best guesses. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates have ranged from 1 Trillion to deficit-neutral. The most recent estimate shows deficit neutrality, which would suggest no add-on to the deficit and possibly even a surplus from the savings in how doctors’ payments are calculated for Medicare.
However, there are some generally accepted principles when it comes to pooled risk (which is what health insurance is).
Principle #1: The higher the number participating in the risk pool, the less expensive it is to provide benefits. In other words, covering the 46 million people not covered by health insurance right now actually decreases the cost per person. This is insurance 101 — even the health insurers agree on this one.
Principle #2: Without competition, prices will rise unreasonably. Right now, major insurers enjoy a competition-free market. They know this. As a result, premiums have risen 100% over the last 10 years. Those dollars limit employers’ ability to hire new employees. Out-of-control insurance costs will continue as will the insurers’ control over those who receive access without a plan that everyone can access.
Lie #3: Quality will suffer
Truth: Their lie presumes that we have quality health care now. The fact is, we do not, no matter how many times you hear the words “Canadian system” sneered on national television. Right now, today, we spend more per person on health care than nations with universal coverage. Our infant mortality rate is higher, over half of adults do not receive care their doctors recommend, and our chronic disease management system is in shreds. Diabetes and heart disease outcomes are extremely poor when compared to other countries, errors and infections are on the rise, and prescription medication costs are spiralling out of control. (See also: The Economist: Reforming American health care: Heading for the emergency room)
When you start with a badly broken system, fixing it can only improve outcomes, which will improve quality. The legislation crafted by the house offers incentives for medical educations and has a focus on primary care providers, a physician group rapidly dwindling in our current system.
For more information, please see our Glossary of Health Care Reform Definitions.
Karoli, When has the government EVER come in under budget on anything?!! Cost overruns galore! As far as the fact that “we spend more per person on health care,” shouldn't we?!!!!! We're the most prosperous, most successful country on the planet!! We have more, therefore we CAN spend more in order to take care of ourselves and live longer lives. Finally, the 46 million who are not covered by health insurance includes illegals, folks temporarily between jobs, and many (in teens and 20's) that don't want coverage. The real numbers I've heard amount to around 8 million out of 300+ MILLION people. We're going to destroy what we already have in place for 2.6% of the population.
The government has been “fighting poverty” since the early 1900's and we're no closer to solving the problem today than we were then. Do you really believe they will “solve” the healthcare problem. How about our schools? We spend more and more $$ every year on education as our students plummet in the educational ranking across the globe. Homeschoolers and private schools run circles around government school kids on a fraction of the budget. The post office is losing money hand over fist and has begun yearly postal increases in order to makeup for their shortfalls. Do I need to go on?
The government has shown time and time again that they cannot be good and effective stewards of our money. When are folks like yourself going to see this?
My question for the GOP is this…why is it ok for the military, their families and our veterans to have government run health care, but not good enough for you?
what an excellent summation Karoli!
From page 16 of the House bill:
“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day” of the year the legislation becomes law.
Essentially, we're allowed to have private insurance, so long as we can afford it right now and get it before this thing is signed into law.
Sure, we're not being *forced* to change insurance plans, but we're not being allowed much choice, either.
Look, I know insurance sucks – I can only afford private insurance for my family, not for myself (and just barely at that). Most of the time, when we have a claim for insurance, they deny it out of hand.
I'm all for weilding a big stick to scare the insurance companies straight, but how about offering them a carrot as well – outlawing them will not help anyone.
A system without competition, particularly when the only solution is the government, will always fail – not just in health care, but *all* systems.
I've also read the rebuttals that actually pertain to this argument – those that say that it's not really outmoding private insurance, but only allowing to exist insurance companies that participate in the government's structured insurance marketplace.
Here's the problem with that – there are dozens of ways to structure a marketplace so that it can be unfair to the competition.
Let's say you run a soft-drink company named Fizzie-pop. Would you, as the CEO of Fizzie-pop, be comfortable only being allowed to sell your Cola if it's done through a marketplace that's federally mandated to exist and owned by Coca-cola?
No, that's ridiculous, and runs completely counter to the principals of competitive practices, free market principals, and fair play.
We don't need health care abolition, which is what this bill proposes – we need health care reform. Reform the way these companies do business. If you're going to try to up the ante in terms of increasing quality of care and efficiency, erecting a multi-billion (trillian?) dollar bureaucracy and then discouraging competition against it isn't the way to go.
We can't simply spend our way out of our healthcare mess – we need to change the way the system works fundamentally. The failure point isn't that insurance is run by private industry, the failure points exist in the bloat and bureaucracy and the dis-incentives to pay up on contracts with their clients.
I don't disagree with you on the bloat and bureaucracy. Single payer would solve that. We won't get single payer because the hysterical moans from the insurance industry would overwhelm.
Part of the bloat: The claims process, the evaluation and denial, appeals, more denials. Doctors' Rx having to go through the interminable prior authorization process, the need to hire an administrator in docs' offices simply to navigate the incredible mess that health care is.
This does not drive out private insurance companies. It forces them to compete lean and mean. They should not get the risk pool that goes nation-wide without corresponding requirements to play on a field that doesn't screw the insureds all the time. As long as they own the markets, they don't compete. And make no mistake, they own their markets.
Mark, did you read the linked post re: p. 16? Here it is again: http://ushealthcrisis.com/2009/07/investors-bus…
Page 16 cannot be read on its own without the context of page 19, which says the following:
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance
coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance
coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered
on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-par-
ticipating health benefits plan.
(2) SEPARATE, EXCEPTED COVERAGE PER-
MITTED.—Excepted benefits (as defined in section
2791(c) of the Public Health Service Act) are not
included within the definition of health insurance
coverage. Nothing in paragraph (1) shall prevent the
offering, other than through the Health Insurance
Exchange, of excepted benefits so long as it is of-
fered and priced separately from health insurance
coverage.
If you do not read this section as a whole, it will certainly appear to be open to your interpretation. However, it's clear that the intent, spirit and letter of the law in no way outlaw any coverage as long as coverage is offered which is either grandfathered or exchange-compliant.
Those are pretty tame. Haven't you heard about the email campaign telling seniors that under the bill Medicare will cover assisted suicide?
I'd buy the “we can spend more to live longer” if it was working out that way. In fact we spend about twice as much as everybody else to come in 37th. in terms of quality of our actual health. Why is that?
GOP Solution – Failure for All!
Individual Insurance Market Failing American Families
July 24, 2009
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publica…
They've also said it will cover abortions. Again, incorrect. But
that's hysterical fearmongering that plays to the fringe. These lies
are for the mainstream.
This blog makes no sense. Mostly every western country outside of the U.S. has better healthcare than we have and available to all. Medicare works. Why not get the insurance companies out of the picture so all can get the care they need?
What a delicious, if idealistic, thought. The only issue the insurers have
right now is the public option and look what they're spending to hold onto
their monopoly! Propose single payer healthcare for all and they would pull
out all the stops. This will be incremental. There's no other way to do it,
in my opinion. At least, not until Congresscritters stop taking contribution
from them.
Why is healthcare the one avenue of life where suddenly “spending a greater proportion of GDP” is a negative item? As it has been noted, Americans spend a greater proportion of GDP on home electronics than Zimbabwe and nobody would claim this as a knock on the U.S. home electronics system.
I hope that Obama's dream for universal health care comes true. There is good reason that he has an over 80 percent approval rating in Canada. He is a wise and good man.
We are disgusted with the scare tactics and perversion of the truth from the likes of foxsnews.
I can't believe that one republican (a clip shown on the Daily Show) claimed that one in five Canadians are dying because of our “socialist piece of crap”. This completely untrue. We are very proud and grateful for our system, and yes we are still working to improve it.
I was grateful every day I was pregnant that I lived in Canada (and my husband had not accepted a job he had been offer in the states ) knowing full well that America has the second highest infant mortality rate in the modern world:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/…
Canadians have really been the victims of some ridiculous charges. If it's any consolation, they wouldn't be aiming at you if they didn't know how powerful the success of your system speaks to the need for reform here. I wish we could be debating single payer instead of this mish-mash of baby steps, but even baby steps are better than what we have right now.
Rx: Don't watch Fox news. It's bad for your health. 🙂
The spending on health care is actually slowing the economy and job creation. Unlike electronics purchases, which have a positive effect on the economy, health care dollars are not being spent wisely nor are they contributing to economic growth.
Love the handle…scary, but funny.
[…] Ya think? […]
Its ironic that this is titled “lies of the gop” as there are so many lies and distortions in this piece that it claims to debunk.
That said, it fails to answer one key question (that I have yet to see a single Representative or Senator answer): What part of the Constitution do they think gives the the authority to grant this kind of power to the federal government? (I should warn you, trying to distort the meaning of the “general welfare” phrase only serves to discredit your argument).
Ah yes, the Constitutional argument rises again.
Of course, the 'general welfare' clause of the Constitution does allow
for this kind of power to be granted to the Federal government. Yes,
yes, I know. Madison argued in Federalist 41 that it should not be
interpreted thus. But…shoulda wouldas don't count here. The US
Supreme Court affirmed the 'general welfare' clause in the
constitution to be interpreted as Hamilton interpreted it — as
granting the power to the Federal government. Given that the USSC has
“distorted” the argument to grant such power, and further given that
this decision has not been overturned and is therefore the law of the
land, the conclusion is that the general welfare clause is indeed the
authority for the government to be granted such power.
If you want for that clause to be inapplicable, I suggest you all
train your sights on putting a case in front of the Supreme Court that
seeks to overturn that ruling. Until then, the prevailing
law…prevails.
When you distort the “general welfare” clause as such (giving the federal government power to mandate individual behavior), you are creating the foundation for a totalitarian state. The reason I stated that using it as your reasoning discredits your argument is that by using it, you are flat out telling people “you cannot take care of yourself, make your own decisions, or know what is best for yourself and thus, the government must step in and do that for you.” In other words, you cannot be trusted to live your own lives, so the government will do that for you and it will eventually be faced with the decision to decide your “worth” to society (due to its limited resources).
By twisting the intent of the meaning of the “general welfare” clause (and this is in general – not specific to any of the proposed healthcare reform bills being floated around the House and Senate), you are advocating a totalitarian utopia, which then invalidates your argument that a republic should allow its government to have such power as a republic and a authoritarian utopia cannot exist simultaneously (which is the flaw in Hamilton's view of the Republic … afterall, he wanted an aristocratic monarchy).
I'm all for getting rid of employer-based health insurance and health insurance reform is needed. However, there is no need for a 1000+ page bill to accomplish this. The two biggest ways things we can do to fix this problem (both of which can and should be done at a state level, by the way) is to reform tort law to limit bogus lawsuits (I'd suggest requiring the plaintiff to pay the amount they asked for to the defendant should the plaintiff lose their case), and get rid of many state (and in some cases federal) regulations that force health insurance companies to operate less like insurance and more like health savings plans (let them operate similar to other forms of insurance – e.g. car, life, homeowners, etc).
Your conclusion about abortions is not entirely accurate. In HR 3200, abortion is not mentioned at all and many in the House (especially pro-choice democrats) have fought tooth and nail to keep any mention of abortion out of the bill. The reason for this is simple: since abortion is a legal medical procedure, if it is not specifically regulated differently in the bill, the government bureaucracy would be able to makes its own rules (similar to what private insurance companies do now) regarding it. With the current political landscape in DC, it is highly likely they would have full coverage for abortions under the government plan (meaning taxpayer money would be funding a procedure that some of the taxpayers consider murder).
This is just one of the problems with a single-payer health savings plan (as it would not be insurance, by definition).
The Capps amendment took care of the loopholes rather thoroughly.
Tort reform has been implemented in California. Since implementation,
my health insurance costs have doubled. How do you reconcile your
claim that tort reform will make a difference with the increases in my
costs? Not just me, either. Med malpractice lawsuits are way, way
down, yet premiums keep skyrocketing, which indicates that tort reform
either is an ineffective way to contain costs, or else the savings are
simply becoming profit margins for insurers and providers alike.
California has MUCH larger issues, but what they did in the way of “tort reform” is hardly what I'd consider reform (more like regression).
California is an extreme case due to years of progressive policies in all areas of their state government. It needs some drastic changes in the way it regulates health insurance providers (moreso than other states in many regards). Additionally, border security, immigration enforcement, and tax reform are all needed to California to get back in the positive in more areas than just health care/insurance.
If you really want to see why your premiums keep “skyrocketing” (as a side note, you might look into moving to a different state … for example, my premiums in Virginia have gone down 10% over the last 12 years), walk into an ER in a few hospitals. As you look around at all the people waiting in the lounge to be seen, realize that many of them likely will not pay a dime for the treatment they receive. By pushing for a single-payer system, you are advocating that, instead of a being able to choose to go with a different company when your present insurance company raises rates to compensate for those that are not paying, everyone that currently pays should pay more, while those that do not pay will continue to do so.
California has MUCH larger issues, but what they did in the way of “tort reform” is hardly what I'd consider reform (more like regression).
California is an extreme case due to years of progressive policies in all areas of their state government. It needs some drastic changes in the way it regulates health insurance providers (moreso than other states in many regards). Additionally, border security, immigration enforcement, and tax reform are all needed to California to get back in the positive in more areas than just health care/insurance.
If you really want to see why your premiums keep “skyrocketing” (as a side note, you might look into moving to a different state … for example, my premiums in Virginia have gone down 10% over the last 12 years), walk into an ER in a few hospitals. As you look around at all the people waiting in the lounge to be seen, realize that many of them likely will not pay a dime for the treatment they receive. By pushing for a single-payer system, you are advocating that, instead of a being able to choose to go with a different company when your present insurance company raises rates to compensate for those that are not paying, everyone that currently pays should pay more, while those that do not pay will continue to do so.