Myth
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Truth
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| 1. This is a universal health care
bill.
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The bill is neither
universal health care nor universal health insurance.
Per the CBO:
- Total uninsured in 2019 with no bill: 54 million
- Total uninsured in 2019 with Senate bill: 24 million
(44%)
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2. Insurance
companies hate this bill
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This bill is almost identical to the plan
written by AHIP, the insurance company trade association, in 2009.
The original Senate Finance Committee bill was authored
by a former
Wellpoint VP. Since Congress released the first of its health care
bills on October 30, 2009, health care stocks have risen 28.35%.
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| 3. The bill will significantly
bring down insurance premiums for most Americans.
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The bill will not
bring down premiums significantly, and certainly not the $2,500/year
that the President promised.
Annual premiums in 2016,
status quo / with bill:
Small group market, single: $7,800 / $7,800
Small group market, family: $19,300 / $19,200
Large Group market, single: $7,400 / $7,300
Large group market, family: $21,100 / $21,300
Individual market, single: $5,500 / $5,800*
Individual market, family: $13,100 /
$15,200*
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4. The bill will make health care
affordable for middle class Americans.
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The bill will impose a financial hardship on
middle class
Americans who will be forced to buy a product that they can’t afford to
use.
A family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay
$5,243 per
year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with
$8,307 in discretionary income — out of which they would have to cover
clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs,
in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for
which families will be responsible.
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| 5. This plan is similar to the
Massachusetts plan, which makes health care affordable.
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Many Massachusetts residents forgo health care
because they can’t afford it.
A 2009 study by the state of Massachusetts found that:
- 21% of residents forgo medical treatment because they
can’t afford it, including 12% of children
- 18% have health insurance but can’t afford to use it
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| 6. This bill provide health care
to 31 million people who are currently uninsured.
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This bill will mandate that millions of people
who are
currently uninsured must purchase insurance from private companies, or
the IRS will collect up to 2% of their annual income in penalties. Some
will be assisted with government subsidies. |
| 7. You can keep the insurance you
have if you like it. |
The excise tax will result in employers
switching to plans with higher co-pays and fewer covered services.
Older, less healthy employees with employer-based health
care will
be forced to pay much more in out-of-pocket expenses than they do now.
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| 8. The “excise tax” will encourage
employers
to reduce the scope of health care benefits, and they will pass the
savings on to employees in the form of higher wages.
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There is insufficient evidence that employers
pass savings from reduced benefits on to employees.
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| 9. This bill employs nearly every
cost control idea available to bring down costs.
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This bill does not bring down costs and leaves
out nearly every key cost control measure, including:
- Public Option ($25-$110 billion)
- Medicare buy-in
- Drug reimportation ($19 billion)
- Medicare drug price negotiation ($300 billion)
- Shorter pathway to generic biologics ($71 billion)
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| 10. The bill will require big
companies like WalMart to provide insurance for their employees
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The bill was written so that most WalMart
employees will
qualify for subsidies, and taxpayers will pick up a large portion of
the cost of their coverage. |
| 11. The bill “bends the cost
curve” on health care.
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The bill ignored proven ways to cut health care
costs and
still leaves 24 million people uninsured, all while slightly raising
total annual costs by $234 million in 2019.
“Bends the cost curve” is a misleading and trivial
claim, as the US
would still spend far more for care than other advanced countries.
In 2009, health care costs were 17.3% of GDP.
Annual cost of health care in 2019,
status quo: $4,670.6 billion (20.8% of GDP)
Annual cost of health care in 2019, Senate bill:
$4,693.5 billion (20.9% of GDP)
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| 12. The bill will provide
immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because
of a pre-existing condition. |
Access to the “high risk pool” is limited and
the pool is
underfunded. It will cover few people, and will run out of money in
2011 or 2012
Only those who have been uninsured for more than six
months will
qualify for the high risk pool. Only 0.7% of those without insurance
now will get coverage, and the CMS report estimates it will run out of
funding by 2011 or 2012.
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| 13. The bill prohibits dropping
people in individual
plans from coverage when they get sick. |
The bill does not empower a regulatory body to
keep people from being dropped when they’re sick.
There are already many states that have laws on the
books
prohibiting people from being dropped when they’re sick, but without an
enforcement mechanism, there is little to hold the insurance companies
in check.
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| 14. The bill ensures consumers
have access to an effective internal and external
appeals process to challenge new insurance plan decisions.
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The “internal appeals process” is in the hands
of the
insurance companies themselves, and the “external” one is up to each
state.
Ensuring that consumers have access to “internal
appeals”
simply means the insurance companies have to review their own
decisions. And it is the responsibility of each state to provide an
“external appeals process,” as there is neither funding nor a
regulatory mechanism for enforcement at the federal level. |
15. This bill will stop insurance
companies from hiking rates 30%-40% per year.
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This bill does not limit insurance company rate
hikes.
Private insurers continue to be exempt from anti-trust laws, and are
free to raise rates without fear of competition in many areas of the
country. |
| 16. When the bill passes, people
will begin receiving benefits under this bill immediately
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Most provisions in this bill, such as an end to
the ban on pre-existing conditions for adults, do not take effect until
2014.
Six months from the date of passage, children could not
be excluded
from coverage due to pre-existing conditions, though insurance
companies could charge more to cover them. Children would also be
allowed to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26. There will be an
elimination of lifetime coverage limits, a high risk pool for those who
have been uninsured for more than 6 months, and
community health centers will start receiving money.
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17. The bill creates a pathway for
single payer.
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Bernie Sanders’ provision in the Senate bill
does not start
until 2017, and does not cover the Department of Labor, so no, it
doesn’t create a pathway for single payer.
Obama told Dennis Kucinich that
the Ohio
Representative’s amendment is similar to Bernie Sanders’ provision in
the Senate bill, and creates a pathway to single payer. Since the
waiver does not start until 2017, and does not cover the Department of
Labor, it is nearly impossible to see how it gets around the ERISA laws
that stand in the way of any practical state single payer system.
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| 18 The bill will end medical
bankruptcy and provide all Americans with peace of mind.
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Most people with medical bankruptcies already
have
insurance, and out-of-pocket expenses will continue to be a burden on
the middle class.
- In 2009, 1.5 million Americans declared bankruptcy
- Of those, 62% were medically related
- Three-quarters of those had health insurance
- The Obama bill leaves 24 million without insurance
- The maximum yearly out-of-pocket limit for a family will
be $11,900 (PDF) on top of premiums
- A family with serious medical problems that last for
a few years could easily be financially crushed by medical costs
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