Broken Promises of ObamaCare

[Stephanie]

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Townhall.com ^ | March 22, 2013 | Tim Phillips

Posted on Saturday, March 23, 2013 7:01:32 AM by Kaslin

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of President Obama’s most significant legislative 'accomplishment': ObamaCare -- the largest expansion of the welfare state in five decades. Tellingly, the President made sure it did not go into effect until after his re-election campaign concluded. Thus, Americans will not feel the full impact of this disastrous legislation until this coming January.

Despite a long, lavishly funded campaign to sell the supposed benefits of the 2,400 page behemoth, polls show ObamaCare is still as deeply unpopular now with the American people than when it passed in the spring of 2010. A recent Kaiser Family Poll shows that opposition to the law remains above 40%.

On this inauspicious anniversary of ObamaCare we should pause and remember the promises made by the President during his campaign to pass this legislation. Time and again President Obama told Americans that, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Yet the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the number of workers who get health care plans from their employers will drop by millions. The plans that most Americans say they’re satisfied with and would like to keep will cease to exist as insurers are forced to comply with new regulations. Already, employer-provided plans are disappearing as small businesses trim payrolls to stay below the 50 person threshold after which the law mandates comprehensive coverage be provided for all workers. The devastating unintended consequence of ObamaCare is more companies dropping health care benefits altogether.

President Obama guaranteed that ObamaCare would “lower premiums by $2,500 per family per year,” but the reverse occurring. In fact, health care premiums on average are going up for most Americans. The National Health Expenditure Projection estimates premiums climbed by 8% in 2012 alone, increases fueled largely by providers attempting to comply with ObamaCare’s endless array of mandates.

President Obama promised the law would not “raise the deficit by a dime” thanks to $500 billion in new taxes and a bit of budget magic. When passed, the law raised taxes starting in 2013 but didn’t start the spending until 2014 underestimating the full budgetary impact. However, according to CBO estimates, the law is projected to cost at best $1.4 trillion as it is fully implemented over the next ten years. Even using the Senate Democrat budget numbers it becomes clear ObamaCare will be a major driver of national debt. In fact, the Government Accountability Office announced in February that ObamaCare will add $6.2 trillion to the long-term federal deficit. And, when in the course of American history has a Washington, D.C. entitlement program ever come in on budget?


all of it here
Broken Promises of ObamaCare - Tim Phillips - Page 1

 

[waltky]

Major networks intentionally suppressing info about how bad Obamacare really is...

ABC, CBS, NBC ‘Deliberately Censoring’ Bad News on Obamacare
April 11, 2013 – Media Research Center President Brent Bozell, based on a new analysis, said ABC, CBS, and NBC “are deliberately censoring news and information” that is negative about Obamacare, an assertion that Stuart Varney, host of Fox’s Varney & Co., said was true, adding, “There is deliberate censorship of information about Obamacare.”

On the Apr. 11 edition of Varney & Co., Bozell said the network new outlets – ABC, CBS, and NBC – “are deliberately censoring news and information from the American people” that reveals some of the negative and unpopular aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the president’s health care law that is popularly known as Obamacare. Bozell then cited an analysis by the Media Research Center’s (MRC) deputy research director, Geoff Dickens, which examines five major facts and developments about Obamacare that the networks have not covered – zero stories. The analysis shows that 33 Democrats joined with at least 40 Republicans in the Senate to repeal a 2.3 percent sales tax, vital to funding Obamacare, on medical devices. The networks did not report this story.

In late March, the Society of Actuaries released a study showing that, partly because of Obamacare, health claims will increase an average 32 percent, and some states will see an increase of 80 percent. “The study estimated that states will now have to double their health spending to cover the millions of the previously uninsured,” reported the MRC. Yet ABC, CBS, and NBC did not report on the premiums’ increase. Also on Mar. 26, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius disclosed that health insurance premiums will rise for some people in the fall 2013 because of Obamacare. “Network news stories: zero,” said Bozell.

Another report on Apr. 3 revealed that the health insurance exchanges, central to Obamacare’s operation and designed to apparently help small businesses deal with health care coverage, are being delayed for another year. The networks did not report on this topic. Also, Bozell told host Stuart Varney, “April 4th, you have a poll -- this was a good one -- that says that two out of three Democrats now believe that Obamacare will hurt them or not help them. Overall, 78 percent of the American people now believe that Obamacare is going to hurt them, not help them. Only 15 percent of the American public believes that Obamacare is going to help them.” “Put them all together: No single network news story on any of that,” said Bozell. “Now, I rest my case, they're censoring information.”

Varney said, “No question, Brent. You've laid out the case and I'm buying it. There is deliberate censorship of information about ObamaCare.” On Apr. 9, Fox’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, a cable program, reported on the MRC analysis. Host Lou Dobbs reviewed the major points from the study and the non-coverage by ABC, CBS, and NBC, emphasizing the “zero” stories by the networks. “The watchdogs at ABC, CBS, and NBC behaving just like lapdogs, pink poodles, little tiny pink poodles,” said Dobbs.

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See also:

Costs of Obamacare Sprinkled Across Hundreds of Pages of Obama's 2014 Budget
April 11, 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) — Next year is the year President Barack Obama's signature health care law goes into high gear, covering millions of uninsured Americans by a mix of private plans and government programs infused with tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

You'd think there'd be a chapter in the new 2014 budget that lays it all out. Wrong. Well, maybe a table? Wrong again. A box? Nope. It turns out that the costs of the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare to its unyielding Republican foes— are sprinkled here and there through hundreds of pages of budget books. It's partly due to the arcane ways of government budgeting. It may also be an effort to avoid giving foes more of a target. "I'm sure somebody has a spreadsheet somewhere, but clearly they are not publishing it in this budget," said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "There is a political aspect to this and there is literally a green-eyeshade part. Once you have adopted a policy it's difficult to just pull it out."

Even some of the major spending in the new law isn't easy to find. Starting Jan. 1, people who don't have health insurance through their jobs will be able to get coverage in two main ways. Low-income people will be eligible for an expanded Medicaid program, provided their state government accepts. Uninsured middle-class people in every state will eligible for subsidized private plans through new state health insurance marketplaces that go live online this fall. So how much will the new coverage cost the government? Hard to tell. The Health and Human Services Department administers the new program. Its Medicaid budget calls for a nearly $38 billion increase for 2014. Most of that is due to the Medicaid expansion. But how much? Department officials said Wednesday they can't really tell.

Well, how about the subsidies to help middle-class uninsured people buy private insurance plans? Those are actually packaged as tax credits and not in the HHS budget at all. A footnote in another part of the budget estimates that "premium assistance credits" will cost $32.3 billion in 2014, rising to $82.2 billion by 2018. Presidential budgets typically highlight new proposals and the cost of programs already on the books just gets blended in to one big fiscal stew. The cost of the health care overhaul — at least for the foreseeable future — is not contributing to the federal deficit. Obama and congressional Democrats made sure it was paid for through a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases borne largely by the wealthy and an assortment of new taxes and fees on health care industries.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is being very specific about one aspect of funding for the new health care law. Her department needs Congress to approve $1.5 billion for it to operate and support new state-based insurance markets. Republicans in the House blocked last year's funding request, causing Sebelius to scrimp on administrative costs and tap into other accounts legally available. But those options will run out over the long haul. "As this act is fully implemented and Americans begin to take advantage of its benefits, I'm hopeful Congress will see it as the law of the land," Sebelius said Wednesday. "Millions of Americans are looking forward to full implementation."

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