Many of Obama's Claims about Health Care Reform Have Been Debunked
Posted on Friday, September 11 @ 12:46:00 EDT
Topic: Democrat Democrats illegal immigration
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 While President Obama will likely make news
tonight by telling a joint session of Congress what he wants and is
willing to accept from a health care reform proposal, he may also
repeat some points he has made over the past few months that have been
refuted by non-partisan sources.
The Congressional Budget Office, run by Democratic director Douglas
Elmendorf, as well as other government and non-profit organizations
have produced analyses that dispute several assertions by the president
and Democratic members of Congress.
Topics: illegal immigration, health care, Obama, illegal immigrants, undocumented, affordability credits, Congress, House, Democrats
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
CNS News
The president, for example, has said health-care
reform will be deficit neutral, does not steer tax dollars to abortions
and that there are 46 million uninsured Americans. But each of these
claims has been disputed by non-partisan sources.
The legislation proposed by Democrats in Congress and backed by
Obama would establishing a government plan to compete with private
insurers, mandate employer and individual coverage and prohibit
insurance companies from denying coverage based on a pre-existing
condition.
Abortions Covered in Language
During his Aug. 22, weekly address aimed at busting myths about the
health reform plan, Obama insisted the legislation would not fund
abortions.
“Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated
under reform,” Obama said. “Also false. When it comes to the current
ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under
reform.”
However, the House bill mandates that government-run insurance
exchanges where people would buy insurance with government subsidies
include at least one plan that covers abortion. Also, committees in
both the House and Senate rejected amendment that would have explicitly
forbid federal money from going to pay for abortion under the plan.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected an amendment on July
31 that would said, “No funds authorized under this Act (or an
amendment by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion.” It was
defeated by a 30-29 vote.
The committee then added an amendment by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.)
that would leave it up to private insurers whether to fund abortions,
even if these private insurers are taking federally subsidized
customers. Her amendment also required that at least one insurer in the
federal insurance exchange cover abortion, and left it up to the
secretary of health and human services to decide if the public option
itself would provide abortion coverage.
The House bill has passed three committees. The Senate legislation,
however, has only passed the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) Committee, and is still under review by the Finance Committee.
The HELP committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Barbara Mikulski
(D-Md.) that requires insurance companies to include services for
pregnant women and women in childbearing years as provided by groups
such as Planned Parenthood.
The adopted language says, “A group health plan and a health insurance
issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall
provide coverage for, and shall not impose any cost sharing
requirements (other than minimal costs sharing in accordance with
guidelines developed by the Secretary) for, with respect to women
(including pregnant and individuals of child bearing ages), such
additional preventative care and screening not covered under section
2708 as provided for in guidelines supported by the Health Resources
and Services Administration.”
Though the Mikulski amendment did not directly state it would cover
abortions, Sens. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Robert Casey (D-Pa.) asked if
the language was broad enough to include coverage of abortion. Mikulski
responded, “It would provide for any service deemed medically necessary
or medically appropriate.”
When Hatch asked if she would add language to her amendment to
specifically exclude abortion coverage, Mikulski answered: “No. I would
not be willing to do that tat this time.”
Not Deficit Neutral
During his July 22 news conference, the president stressed that one important goal of the legislation was to save money.
Obama said: “Now, what we did very early on was say two-thirds of
the costs of health care reform--which includes providing coverage for
people who don't have it, making it more affordable for folks who do,
and making sure that we’re over the long term creating the kinds of
systems where prevention and wellness and information technologies make
the system more efficient--that the entire cost of that has to be paid
for and it’s got to be deficit-neutral.”
However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has shown that the
health care overhaul legislation would add another $1.04 trillion in
federal spending over the next 10 years if enacted.
“That estimate primarily reflects $438 billion in additional
federal outlays for Medicaid and $773 billion in federal subsidies that
would be provided to purchase coverage through the new insurance
exchanges, the CBO report from July says.
“Not all enrollees in the exchanges would receive subsidies, but the
average subsidy among those who would be subsidized is projected to
rise from roughly $4,800 in 2015 to roughly $6,000 in 2019,” the report
continues. “The other main element of the proposal that would increase
federal deficits is the tax credit for small employers who offer health
insurance, which is estimated to reduce revenues by $53 billion over 10
years.”
The CBO does say, however, that some of that cost increase will level off in later years.
“Initially, the net increase in employment-based coverage that is
estimated to result from the proposal would increase the federal
deficit by several billion dollars per year because it would shift
compensation toward tax-preferred health insurance,” the report says.
“Over time, however, the net impact on employment-based coverage would
diminish, and the resulting impact on the budget would be smaller.”
35 Million Americans Uninsured
On at least three occasions, the president has overstated the number of Americans who are uninsured by as much as 10 million.
In an op-ed in The New York Times, Obama said, “I don’t have to
explain to the nearly 46 million Americans who don’t have health
insurance how important this is.”
During the July 22 news conference, Obama said talked about the “47 million Americans who have no health insurance.”
And during an Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., he
also said, “nearly 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance
coverage today,” and that “46 million of our fellow citizens have no
coverage.”
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 35.9 million U.S. citizens and
9.7 million foreign nationals living in the United States are without
medical insurance. That is according to the bureau’s report on “Income,
Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007,” the
most recent publicly available statistics.
The 2008 data will be released on Thursday—the day after the president’s speech to the joint session of Congress.
No Verification
During his Aug. 22 address, Obama said, “Let’s start with the false
claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform.
That’s not true. Illegal immigrants would not be covered. That idea has
never even been on the table.”
The House bill does state in Title II, Subtitle C, Section 246 that “no federal payment for undocumented aliens.”
However, the proposal provides no mechanism for verifying legal
status, making it difficult for insurers and medical personal to know
who legally qualifies for federal subsidies under the plan.
Amendments proposed by Rep. Dean Heller (R.-Nev.) and Rep. Nathan Deal
(R.-Ga.) that would have required verification of legal status were
rejected respectively by the House Ways and Means and the House Energy
and Commerce committees.
Heller said that the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS),
and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) would
ensure that health insurance subsidy applicants are U.S. citizens or
legal residents eligible for the program.
Medicare
When speaking to the AARP, Obama said, “Nobody is talking cutting Medicare benefits.”
However, he has supported eliminating subsidies to Medicare
Advantage, which allows seniors to buy certain private plans with
public dollars. The president has called the program “costly and
redundant.”
“What we do want to do is eliminate some of the waste that is being
paid for out of the Medicare trust fund that could be used more
effectively to cover more people and to strengthen the system,” Obama
said.
Keep Existing Plan
In what was supposed to be a myth-busting weekly address, Obama again
stated that everyone would be able to keep their existing plan.
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” Obama said.
“If you like your private insurance plan, you can keep your plan.
Period.”
There is no coercion to change to the government option.
But with the government-run health insurance exchange and the
public option, employers would have incentives to change the plan
offered to their employees, according to studies by the CBO and the
Lewin Group, a private health care analysis firm.
The Lewin Group projects that if the government option extended to all
employers, enrollment would grow to 131.2 million and 119.1 million
Americans would leave private plans for the public option.
In a June 15 report, the CBO said, “When fully implemented, about
39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance
exchanges.”
“At the same time,” the CBO said, “the number of people who had
coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or
roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by
about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured
would be about 16 million or17 million."
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