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Debunked: 5 GOP Obamacare Talking Points That Have Bitten The Dust

Debunked: 5 GOP Obamacare Talking Points That Have Bitten The Dust

Obama

The New York Times reported Wednesday that a large majority of people who signed up for Obamacare have paid their premiums on time. While these numbers vary based on the state and the type of plan, The Times says around 80 percent of those who signed up are paying, which is required for insurance coverage to start.

And, just like that, another Republican talking point about the Affordable Care Act has been debunked.

This idea that Obamacare beneficiaries would not pay their premiums, effectively dooming the young law, is in good company. A number of Republican talking points about Obamacare have bitten the dust recently. From the completely outlandish — death panels, government-funded abortions, etc. — to the notion that the Obama administration would never hit its enrollment target, they’ve ranged in viability, but have all nonetheless evaporated.

Here’s a look back at five anti-Obamacare talking points that have inevitably been disproved.

AFP Photo/Saul Loeb

No One Will Sign Up 

Ted Cruz Tea Party

The line was repeated ad nauseam by Republican detractors of the president. But — not surprisingly — saying it over and over didn’t make it come true.

There was the time House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said: “Above all, this report is a symbol of the failure of the president’s health care law… It is a rolling calamity that must be scrapped,” after the initial low enrollment numbers were released. Or when Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted: “106,185 people enrolled in Obamacare. 108,713 attended the 2010 NBA All-Star Game in Cowboys Stadium. .”

At the end of March, the White House released enrollment numbers that exceeded its initial goal of seven million. By the end of the first open enrollment period, signups were skyrocketing, eventually closing at above eight million.

Still, this hasn’t stopped some conservative pundits from questioning the success of the law. Charles Krauthammer, for example, now subscribes to the conspiracy theory that the numbers were fabricated by the administration.

“These guys go six months without any idea what the numbers are, and all of a sudden it’s to a decimal point,” Krauthammer actually said on television.

AFP Photo/Andrew Burton

A Lack Of Young People Will Cause A ‘Death Spiral’ 

This one had all the ingredients of a good GOP talking point: plausibility, an appeal to business thinkers, and a snappy catchphrase like “death spiral.” But these elements didn’t make it a reality.

Obamacare’s death spiral would occur, conservatives posited, because the number of old and sick people who signed up for coverage would not be offset by young, healthy people also signing up through the exchanges, causing premiums to rise and the entire program to spiral down the drain. But, thanks to the way the law was written, the so-called death spiral was never likely. And now it’s clear that health premiums are on pace to increase at the same rate as they were prior to the law being passed.

Furthermore, the final enrollment numbers show that 28 percent of those who enrolled via the federal exchange were between the ages of 18 and 34. While this number of “young invincibles” fell short of the administration’s initial target, it should be more than sufficient to prevent the law from collapsing.

Millions Will Lose Their Health Insurance

Henry Waxman

This talking point, which perhaps reached its pinnacle when Newsmaxreported that 100 million people could lose insurance under Obamacare, was largely disproved by a paper prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The paper concluded that a grand total of 10,000 individuals, in just one state, would lose coverage and not have a viable option to replace their health care plan.

“The assertion that the law will cause five million individuals who currently have coverage in the individual market to go without coverage in 2014 is baseless,” the report read. “Of the reported 4.7 million people who receive cancellation notices, 2.35 million should have the option to renew their 2013 coverage. An additional 1.4 million should be eligible for tax credits through the marketplaces or Medicaid, which will provide them more comprehensive coverage at lower rates. Of the remaining individuals, only 10,000 individuals in 18 counties in a single state would be unable to access a catastrophic plan, and many of these individuals may sign up for coverage through their state exchange.”

Furthermore, under the new law, the uninsured rate in the United States has dropped, according to a recent Gallup poll. According to the poll, the April 2014 uninsured rate is down 1.6 percent from March and currently sits at 13.4 percent. That is also the lowest number Gallup has ever found since they began tracking the rate in 2008.

 Photo: Charlie Kaijo via Flickr


Death Panels 

This one, advanced by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, was certainly a whopper. So much so, in fact, that it was granted the title of “Lie of the Year” by PolitFact in 2009.

The death panel idea originated from a provision in the initial Affordable Care Act that would allow Medicare to pay for doctors and patients to discuss living wills and end-of-life treatment. To Palin, this was tantamount to the government holding a death panel to decide whether or not senior citizens are allowed to live.

Palin’s campaign, while ridiculous, did have important political ramifications: In 2011, the Obama administration deleted all references to “end-of-life” care from the provision in the bill.

Premium Prices Will Soar 

Health Care Premium

The final talking point is somewhat connected to the previously discussed “death spiral,” but deserves its own recognition. This one, offered again and again by Republican pundits like Sean Hannity, holds that insurance premiums for businesses and individuals will rise at an exponential rate because of the health care overhaul. Double-digit increases in health care premiums were expected by the right. It was going to be a disaster, they assured.

Well, disaster averted.

According to the USA Today, insurance rates are slated to rise by about 7 percent next year — similar to the rise expected without the Affordable Care Act.

“The double-rate increases we’ve been hearing are probably exaggerated,” Dave Axene, a fellow with the Society of Actuaries, toldUSA Today. “That’s not what we’re seeing from the actuarial organizations — I guess we’re being a little bit more optimistic.”  

Image via The Kaiser Family Foundation

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Healthcare Sign-Ups Keep Rising, But Likely Won’t Meet Goals

Healthcare Sign-Ups Keep Rising, But Likely Won’t Meet Goals

By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — With less than a month remaining in the first enrollment period, more than 4.2 million Americans have signed up for health insurance on marketplaces created by President Barack Obama’s health law, administration officials announced Tuesday.

The new enrollment report confirms that the administration and its allies will probably fall short of the 7 million sign-ups they had hoped to get in 2014.

The report also shows that health insurance sign-ups continued to recover in February from the disastrous launch of the federal HealthCare.gov website. More than 940,000 people enrolled in coverage in February alone.

Based on the experience of other programs, officials expect the rate of sign-ups to accelerate between now and the March 31 deadline for enrolling in coverage this year.

The sign-up figures overstate actual enrollment, however, as many consumers have not paid their insurance bills. Administration officials have not released figures on the number of paid premiums. Some insurers have reported that as many as 1 in 5 consumers have not yet paid.

California continues to lead all states through the first five months of enrollment, with nearly 869,000 people signed up for a health plan through the state’s marketplace, Covered California.

Florida, which is among 36 states that are relying on the federal government to run their marketplaces this year, was second with more than 244,000 sign-ups.

Next are Texas, New York, North Carolina and Michigan.

“Now, during this final month of open enrollment, our message to the American people is this,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. “You still have time to get covered, but you’ll want to sign up today.”

The state-based marketplaces — a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act — enable Americans who do not get coverage at work to select among plans that offer at least a basic set of benefits. The plans cannot turn away sick people.

Consumers who make less than four times the federal poverty level, or about $94,000 for a family of four, qualify for government subsidies to offset the cost of their premiums.

It remains unclear how many of the people signing up for coverage were previously uninsured, a key measurement for the effectiveness of the landmark 2010 law.

But several new surveys suggest that the marketplaces may be having an effect on health coverage.

The share of Americans without insurance dropped in the first two months of 2014 to 15.9 percent, down from 17.1 percent in the last three months of 2013, according to a survey of 28,000 Americans by Gallup.

The survey’s authors noted that they cannot definitively conclude that the Affordable Care Act caused the change, but the decline started in the last three months of last year, just as the law took effect.

That followed a steady rise in the rate of uninsured beginning with the financial crisis late in 2008.

The increase in coverage was also most pronounced among the group of Americans targeted by the new law: families and individuals with household incomes below $36,000 a year.

At the same time, consulting giant McKinsey Co., which has conducted four surveys of people who are eligible to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, found that 27 percent of those who signed up in February using the marketplaces were previously uninsured, up from 11 percent in its earlier surveys.

More than 4 in 5 of the people signing up for coverage are qualifying for subsidies, according to the new Obama administration enrollment report.

Many are also older, with just 27 percent of those who signed up in February in the coveted 18-34 age bracket, well below the 40 percent target administration officials have set.

Young, healthy consumers are considered crucial to the long-term sustainability of the insurance marketplaces because they help balance risk, keeping insurance premiums in check.

Most experts believe that the youngest and healthiest consumers will wait until the last minute to sign up.

Those who do not have a health plan by the end of open enrollment may be subject to a tax penalty.

AFP Photo/David McNew

Obamacare Signs Up 2.2 Million, A Quarter Young Adults

Obamacare Signs Up 2.2 Million, A Quarter Young Adults

Washington (AFP) – About 24 percent of people who signed up online for President Barack Obama’s trouble-plagued signature health care plans in 2013 were young adults, the group key to keeping the system balanced, officials said Monday.

That’s a number the administration hopes to increase, the Health and Human Services officials added.

Overall, almost 2.2 million people have been able to sign up online despite a very bumpy rollout of Obama’s top political legacy, HHS said in a report released Monday.

That figure comes from the start of the enrollment period on October 1 through December 28, 2013. But the report found the vast majority of enrollments — 1.8 million — came in December, after a slow start.

The rollout of the website, which should allow every American without health insurance to register for coverage, has been plagued by technical problems. Obama’s administration had earlier vowed to improve the site’s technical failings.

Health care reform was the centerpiece of Obama’s election campaign in 2008 and was passed in 2010 before being upheld in 2012 by the Supreme Court.

But Obama’s popularity has nosedived to an all-time low since implementation of the Affordable Care Act, dubbed “Obamacare,” got under way.

Among the people signing up, young adults aged 18-34 — a key set from the insurers point of view since they are the least likely to be sick, and as such the least costly — are key to preventing cost overruns. The lower rates for younger people help the program make up costs for other ages, particularly the elderly.

“The trend so far as we released in this report are suggestive of an appropriate mix in the marketplace,” said Mike Hash, Director of HHS’s Office of Health Reform. “But again to remind you, we’re only halfway through the enrollment period, and we expect an increase in the proportion of young adults as we go forward.”

About 79 percent of the 2.2 million received government financial help to pay their insurance premiums, the report found.

“There’s no way to spin it: youth enrollment has been a bust so far,” said Brendan Buck, spokesman for John Boehner, Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

“When they see that Obamacare offers high costs for limited access to doctors — if the enrollment goes through at all — it’s no surprise that young people aren’t rushing to sign up,” he insisted.

AFP Photo/Karen Bleier