WHAT OBAMA SAYS: “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks To The American Medical Association, Chicago, IL, 6/15/09)
TRANSLATION: Under government-run health care, your employer will stop offering health benefits and cancel your plan.
THE FACTS: CBO Says Democrat Plan would result in employers canceling insurance for 10 million Americans in 2017 alone. “Looking at one year–2017–as an example, CBO estimates that, under the HELP proposal, about 147 million people would have employer-sponsored insurance in that year, 15 million fewer than would have such insurance under current law.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks To The American Medical Association, Chicago, IL, 6/15/09)
TRANSLATION: Under government-run health care, your doctor will refuse you because your new insurance won’t cover their costs.
THE FACTS: Government-run health care pays much less than private insurance, which means that doctors must refuse patients.
One example of this comes from Michigan. A recent article drew attention to the fact that Michigan doctors had to refuse patients, “… Doctors say the state-set reimbursement rates are already too low, in some cases covering only one-third of the actual costs of patient visits …” (Christina Rogers, “Doctors Balk At Medicaid Program,” The Associated Press, 6/7/09)
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: “[W]e want some competition. If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it’ll keep them honest and it’ll help keep their prices down.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks At A Town Hall Meeting On Healthcare, Green Bay, WI, 6/11/09)
TRANSLATION: A “public option” will become the only option, a government takeover of health care that puts insurance companies out of business.
THE FACTS: Chicago Tribune Editorial: Government-Run Health Care Will Crowd Out Private Competitors. “But the federal government isn’t competition. It is the health care equivalent of Bigfoot, with so many Americans on its rolls that it dictates prices for doctors, drugs, and other benefits…A new public option may start small. But it could easily crowd out private plans depending on how premiums, benefits and subsidies are structured.” (Editorial, “Hope and Experience,” The Chicago Tribune, 6/16/09)
Democratic Congresswoman Told Supporters “Public Option” Will Drive Private Insurers Out of Business. Rep. Schakowsky, (D-IL): “‘My single payer friends, he [a gentleman in the private insurance sector] was right; the man was right … I am so confident in the superiority of a public healthcare option that I think he has every reason to be frightened.’” (Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Remarks at the Health Care for America Rally, Chicago, IL, 4/18/09)
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: “[R]eforms that we’re introducing … [mean] faster economic growth, higher living standards, and falling, instead of rising, budget deficits.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks To The American Medical Association, Chicago, IL, 6/15/09)
TRANSLATION: Government-run health care means higher deficits, higher costs and higher taxes.
THE FACTS: CBO Director has said plans for government-run health care would worsen the budget outlook. “President Obama’s plan to expand health coverage to the uninsured is likely to dig the nation deeper into debt …[the plan] would be much more likely to worsen the long-run budget outlook than to improve it,’ he said. …” (Lori Montgomery, Shailagh Murray & Ceci Connolly, “Obama’s Health Plan Needs Spending Controls, CBO Says,” The Washington Post, 6/17/09)
Washington Post: Experts Warn Obama’s Plan Means “Higher Costs” For Private Sector. “President Obama’s plan to rein in federal spending on health care could end up shifting costs to the private sector, economists say…[T]he result could be higher costs for insurers, employers, and people with private medical coverage, they say.” (David S. Hilzenrath, “Health-Care Cuts Could Shift Costs,” The Washington Post, 6/18/09)
House Democrats have lots of potential targets for higher taxes as they aim to expand health care coverage…under consideration are higher alcohol taxes, increases to the Medicare payroll tax and a value-added tax, a sort of national sales tax, of up to 1.5 percent or more … The [other] tax options include: a new employer payroll tax could target 3 percent of employers’ health care expenditures, taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits above certain levels.” (Erica Werner, “House Eyes New Taxes As Senators Pare Health Bill,” The Associated Press, 6/19/09)
