The only major news outlet that covered Harry Reid calling Americans who have lost their health insurance liars was Fox News… so many Americans haven’t heard anything about this.
NewsBusters: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insulted victims of ObamaCare on Wednesday – and the three major networks didn’t seem to care. [Video below. MP3 audio here.]
Then today in another blatant political move, the administration has moved the date for the effectiveness of most of those losses or any further loses until after the 2014 Election in the hope that the low-informed won’t catch on… Please spread the word.
Are there a disproportionate number of liars in politics than anywhere else? Possible, but I’d wager that liars abound everywhere, regardless of occupation.
The frightening thing about liars in positions of power, rather than just liars in general, is that those in power can use their lies to persuade large groups of people. Those for whom lying is a gift can use politics as a means of mass destruction. One of the most gifted liars in politics is Senator Harry Reid. Harry Reid can always be counted on to spin a tale whenever Obama needs him to. Most recently, Reid has tried to discredit all of the Obamacare horror stories we’ve been hearing. But rather than make implications, or claim that the stories are embellished, Reid is simply calling them lies.
“Despite all that good news, there’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue, but they’re being told all over America…The leukemia patient whose insurance policy was canceled [and] could die without her medication, Mr. President, that’s an ad being paid for by two billionaire brothers. It’s absolutely false. Or the woman whose insurance policy went up $700 a month–ads paid for around America by the multibillionaire Koch brothers, and the ad is false….We heard about the evils of Obamacare, about the lives it’s ruining in Republicans’ stump speeches and in ads paid for by oil magnates, the Koch brothers.”
Wait a minute. Let’s think about this for a second. Harry Reid’s accusations are logically flawed. Out of hand, he discounts stories simply because they’ve been made into attack ads. He claims that because of the involvement of money from the evil Koch brothers, the stories of those negatively impacted by Obamacare are lies. He is arguing that correlation proves causation, which is a well known fallacy.
Harry Reid is not only being ridiculous, and an idiot, he is being extremely cruel. Can you imagine being called a liar in front of millions of people simply because you shared your story? These people, some of whom are terminally ill, decided to speak up, and they are now being shamed by the Senator from Nevada.
The worst part of this story is that Harry Reid’s acolytes will help spread his lies. Harry Reid’s outright lies will be repeated by liberal pundits everywhere, and there will be many Americans who fall for it, because they are uninformed, and completely uninterested in doing their own research.
Harry Reid just lied to all of us. He used fallacious arguments to persuade Americans that Obamacare is just so darn great, and that we should all ignore those cancer-stricken jerks who are slandering our wondrous president. In one paragraph, Harry Reid insulted numerous terminally ill Americans, and defended a healthcare system that was conceived as a means to accrue power, rather than help anybody.
Harry Reid doesn’t deserve to serve the American people. #FireHarry
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – MARCH 15: U.S. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivers remarks next to a tall stack of Obamacare regulations during the second day of the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) March 15, 2013 in National Harbor, Maryland. The American conservative Union held its annual conference in the suburb of Washington, DC, to rally conservatives and generate ideas. Credit: Getty Images
The following story is from the Associated Press, cross-posted at The Blaze:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama’s overhaul, the nation’s leading group of financial risk analysts has estimated.
That’s likely to increase premiums for at least some Americans buying individual plans.
The report by the Society of Actuaries could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act.
While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.
The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.
The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families. That’s because the primary impact of Obama’s law is on people who don’t have coverage through their jobs.
The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn’t take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said.
At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said some of what passes for health insurance today is so skimpy it can’t be compared to the comprehensive coverage available under the law. “Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don’t pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus,” she said. “They’re really mortgage protection, not health insurance.”
A prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does “a credible job” of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, “without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction.”
“Having said that,” Foster added, “actuaries tend to be financially conservative, so the various assumptions might be more inclined to consider what might go wrong than to anticipate that everything will work beautifully.” Actuaries use statistics and economic theory to make long-range cost projections for insurance and pension programs sponsored by businesses and government. The society is headquartered near Chicago.
Kristi Bohn, an actuary who worked on the study, acknowledged it did not attempt to estimate the effect of subsidies, insurer competition and other factors that could mitigate cost increases. She said the goal was to look at the underlying cost of medical care.
“Claims cost is the most important driver of health care premiums,” she said.
“We don’t see ourselves as a political organization,” Bohn added. “We are trying to figure out what the situation at hand is.”
On the plus side, the report found the law will cover more than 32 million currently uninsured Americans when fully phased in. And some states – including New York and Massachusetts – will see double-digit declines in costs for claims in the individual market.
Uncertainty over costs has been a major issue since the law passed three years ago, and remains so just months before a big push to cover the uninsured gets rolling Oct. 1. Middle-class households will be able to purchase subsidized private insurance in new marketplaces, while low-income people will be steered to Medicaid and other safety net programs. States are free to accept or reject a Medicaid expansion also offered under the law.
Obama has promised that the new law will bring costs down. That seems a stretch now. While the nation has been enjoying a lull in health care inflation the past few years, even some former administration advisers say a new round of cost-curbing legislation will be needed.
Bohn said the study overall presents a mixed picture.
Millions of now-uninsured people will be covered as the market for directly purchased insurance more than doubles with the help of government subsidies. The study found that market will grow to more than 25 million people. But costs will rise because spending on sicker people and other high-cost groups will overwhelm an influx of younger, healthier people into the program.
Some of the higher-cost cases will come from existing state high-risk insurance pools. Those people will now be able to get coverage in the individual insurance market, since insurance companies will no longer be able to turn them down. Other people will end up buying their own plans because their employers cancel coverage. While some of these individuals might save money for themselves, they will end up raising costs for others.
Part the reason for the wide disparities in the study is that states have different populations and insurance rules. In the relatively small number of states where insurers were already restricted from charging higher rates to older, sicker people, the cost impact is less.
“States are starting from different starting points, and they are all getting closer to one another,” said Bohn.
The study also did not model the likely patchwork results from some states accepting the law’s Medicaid expansion while others reject it. It presented estimates for two hypothetical scenarios in which all states either accept or reject the expansion.
Larry Levitt, an insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, reviewed the report and said the actuaries need to answer more questions.
“I’d generally characterize it as providing useful background information, but I don’t think it’s complete enough to be treated as a projection,” Levitt said. The conclusion that employers with sicker workers would drop coverage is “speculative,” he said.
Another caveat: The Society of Actuaries contracted Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, to do the number-crunching that drives the report. United also owns the nation’s largest health insurance company. Bohn said the study reflects the professional conclusions of the society, not Optum or its parent company.
Featured image via AFP/Getty. Carousel photo by Olivier Douliery/ABACAUSA.com
Senator Mitch McConnell tweeted: #ObamaCare regulations - 828 pages in one day. Overall, there are nearly 20,000 pages – with many more to come… along with the photo of the document stack.
Yes, ObamaCare regulators added more than 800 -pages to an ever-growing document that will govern your healthcare. The bureaucrats’ work product now prints out to 20,000 pages — nearly eight times the length of the infamous original bill:
HotAir: That tower is already taller than Kobe Bryant, and much of the law hasn’t even gone into effect yet. According to the Government Accountability Office, Obamacare is projected to add $6.2 trillion to the nation’s long-term deficits, despite presidential assurances that it wouldn’t add a “single dime” to our red ink:
“This legislation is fully paid for, and will not add one single dime to our deficit.”
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released an edition of its so-called “beige book,” that said the 2010 healthcare law is being cited as a reason for layoffs and a slowdown in hiring. ”Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff,” said the March 6 beige book, which examines economic conditions across various Federal Reserve districts across the country.
A former Obama adviser is now admitting that the law was never intended to be “a jobs program.” Funny, that’s not what Democrats told us while they were jamming it down our throats. I’ll leave you with Nancy Pelosi explaining how Obamacare is really all about creating millions of jobs and, er, reducing the deficit:
The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in ObamaCare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment, according to the Tax Prof Blog. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010.
I am watching the Senate Healthcare Debate. Senators Wyden, Bayh and Collins are offering a bipartisan amendment to allow people who are not getting subsidies from the government to purchase insurance with a high deductible in order to keep costs down. They actually admitted during the debate that premiums would increase for these people without this amendment. We keep saying WE DON"T WANT THIS BILL and they are saying to us, "this will make it better". They are treating us like children who don't want to take our medicine.
This morning on the Senate floor Senator Mitch McConnell said the recent CNN poll showed that 61% of Americans oppose this bill. I wonder if any of the Democratic Senators care?
It was announced on the Senate floor by Senator Enzi this morning that the CMS (Center for Medicare Services) announced that the Reid bill bends the cost curve up and is unsustainable. I hope the Democrats hear this.
I also just heard Senators McConnell and Johannis on Fox News state that this bill will definitely cost everyone more... as we know the entire premise of reform and cutting costs was a big fat lie. The GOP had the CMS go over the bill and the actuary verified that cost would be much higher than the CBO and Congress are saying and that the cost will continue on an upward curve.
Cavuto (FNC) had a surgeon that said there is also a provision in the new Medicare provision of the HC bill that will only someone 90-days in the hospital in one year. So if you have been in perfect health all your life and never collect a dime from insurance, but all of a sudden come down with a major illness, accident or condition, you will have to pay out of pocket for your hospital stay beyond 90-days, if it all falls into one year.
And the bad news just keeps on coming....
At one point the GOP explored the option of expanding Medicare and they were told that it would cause an immediate death spiral to this already ailing program… yet now the Dems are selling this as their Public Option.
Add the above to:
There is a crisis, and it appears to be located in the U.S. Senate. My esteemed Keloland colleague and colleague Emeritus, David Newquist, has this:
John Thune has become the voice of the GOP–Groundless Obstinence and Petulance–according to the Huffington Post. He says his party will unanimously oppose any health care reform, no matter what is proposed.
For someone who complains a lot when he thinks that others have distorted his words, he seems very careless in describing what Senator Thune said or what the Huffington Post said he said. The Huffington Post article he links to makes it clear in the title that Thune was only speaking about "the Newest Heath Care Compromise," and hardly ruling out GOP support for any bill.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told the Huffington Post that he did not think the dropping of a public option for insurance coverage from the bill would be enough for Democrats to win even the support of moderate Republican Senators Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, both of Maine.
"I just think that our side believes that it is a really bad idea to take a program that is already sinking and put more people into it."
Here is how the Washington Post describes the "newest" idea that Reid is floating:
The 11th-hour "compromise" on health-care reform and the public option supposedly includes an expansion of Medicare to let people ages 55 to 64 buy into the program.
This deal, which the WaPo dates back to the Clinton Administration, seems designed to get something like a "public option" into the bill without calling it a public option. Republican opposition may be obstinate and petulant, or maybe not; however, it is hardly groundless. The WaPo points out that it is difficult to tell what effect this "buy in" would have on the reform scheme.
Presumably, the expanded Medicare program would pay Medicare rates to providers, raising the question of the spillover effects on a health-care system already stressed by a dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Will providers cut costs -- or will they shift them to private insurers, driving up premiums? Will they stop taking Medicare patients or go to Congress demanding higher rates? Once 55-year-olds are in, they are not likely to be kicked out, and the pressure will be on to expand the program to make more people eligible. The irony of this late-breaking Medicare proposal is that it could be a bigger step toward a single-payer system than the milquetoast public option plans rejected by Senate moderates as too disruptive of the private market.
As the perhaps obstinate and petulant, but hardly Republican WaPo presents it, there is no way to predict what unintended consequences may follow.
But Republican opposition is based on broader considerations. Expanding Medicare would be a step towards a single payer plan. But it was also mean expanding a program that is on schedule to go broke in only a few years. It also looks like more sleight of hand on the Democrat's part. They are already counting on dramatic cuts in Medicare to make other parts of the bill look more affordable. As the WaPo points out, Medicare reimbursement rates are already too low to sustain hospital and doctor care, which results in a shift of costs to private insurance. The medical establishment is vehemently criticizing the idea.
This looks like a big mess. Rumors that a deal has been reached appear to be greatly exaggerated. I am not even certain that there is a coherent idea here. Meanwhile the petulant and obstinate public continues to oppose the bill by wide margins. Quinnipiac and Rasmussen put the 52% opposed/38% in favor, and 51/41 respectively. Worse news for reform is the CNN poll, which has 61% opposed and only 36% in favor. That's the first time to my knowledge that opposition has risen above 60%. If it's on track, the CNN poll is disastrous news for Harry Reid.
In opposing the Senate reform bill, Senator Thune is not only exercising common sense. He is standing on behalf of the majority of the American people.
WASHINGTON - -- The unexpected new proposal for breaking the impasse over the so-called public option won President Barack Obama's endorsement Wednesday and sent hopes surging among a wide array of Democrats that the way may be clearing to pass their massive Senate health care bill by Christmas. The deal, which emerged late Tuesday night after days of secret negotiations, would eliminate the new government-run insurance plan that many liberals had seen as the linchpin of meaningful reform.
But paradoxically, what lies at the heart of the compromise may be a more durable, if initially smaller, form of the public option: an expansion of Medicare, the huge federal health insurance program for seniors, to include millions of Americans ages 55 through 64.
And by enlarging Medicare eligibility, the compromise could sharply expand the base of political support, giving ordinary Americans a concrete stake in what many may have seen as a distant battle among drug companies, doctors and other interests. Under the deal hammered out by 10 Democratic negotiators, potentially millions of Americans 55 to 64 could sign up for a program that has become a vital safety net for the country's retirees since it was created more than four decades ago. That prospect has excited some proponents of creating a single-payer system, who saw even the weak government program in the original bill as a "camel's nose under the tent" in their drive to ensure that all Americans get a government-provided insurance plan.
"Expanding Medicare is an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. "It's the mother of all public options. We've taken something people know and expanded it. ... Never mind the camel's nose, we've got his head and neck under the tent."
Todd Swim, a partner with the health benefits consulting firm Mercer, said a Medicare expansion could also have profound effects on employers and their workers.
"Access to medical care is one of the biggest inhibitors to retiring early, and a lot of people are going to be looking at that as an option," he said.
Although Americans in this age group are more likely to have insurance than those in their 20s or 30s, they often have a very difficult time getting coverage because many have pre-existing medical conditions.
Next year, most Medicare beneficiaries will pay a monthly premium of $110.50.
"The price point will be much more affordable than any option they have," Swim said.
Chicago Tribune
**Everyone I have heard talk about this today has said that this new Medicare enlargement will absolutely bring us to a single payer system much much sooner than any of the other options in any of the other bills. They took out the "Public Option" wording and intend to roll over us and pass this regardless of what we want. The GOP has been standing up but the Dems are not listening to anything they say. We absolutely need to keep up the pressure and hammer the possible fence sitters letting them know that if they vote for this this are out, even if they are not up for election in 2010.
I heard Lieberman earlier today blabbering on about he didn't know what was in this new version/compromise. Who cares what is in it.... We don't want the whole thing and we know whatever is in it, it is full of lies and bad things. Lieberman needs to vote no and we really need to pressure him!!!!!!!!!!!
