Health Reform: While everyone is busy picking apart the flaws of the Republican ObamaCare replacement bill, one inconvenient truth is being overlooked: ObamaCare itself has been a colossal disaster.
Remember how ObamaCare was sold to the public: If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. It will lower premiums by $2,500, increase choice and competition, make health care affordable, create jobs, cut the deficit.
None of those promises came true. In 2013, millions discovered that the “keep your plan” promise was a lie — PolitiFact gave it the “Lie of the Year” award — when they started getting cancellation notices from their insurers. The Obama administration scrambled to minimize the political fallout by letting some keep those plans.
While Obama repeatedly promised a premium cut thanks to improved efficiency in the health care system, the opposite occurred. Workplace premiums for family plans jumped 9.4% the year after ObamaCare became law, and rose $4,767 from 2009 to 2006. ObamaCare premiums are going up at double-digit rates.
As for choice and competition, consumers have fewer choices in most markets today than they did before ObamaCare. In a third of the nation’s counties there is only one. That share will increase next year as Aetna and others pull out of still more markets amid massive losses. It is possible that there will be zero in many markets next year.
Affordability also turned out to be false promise. To keep costs down, insurers jacked up deductibles into the $6,000 range. Even then, premiums for most ObamaCare plans are hugely expensive, particularly for those eligible for only partial subsidies or none at all.
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The Republican health plan is far from perfect. But at least Republicans are offering something concrete. The same cannot be said of their critics, who are simply ignoring the fact that ObamaCare never lived up to its promises and is now completely falling apart.
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Unlike ObamaCare, The GOP Health Bill Wasn't Built On Lies And False Promises https://t.co/YC9s4T2N2V #tcot #tlot
— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) May 5, 2017
This bill was based on the lie that Obamacare was going to be gutted, repealed and replaced.
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