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7 Ways Obama Lied About Your Health Coverage

Posted: 07/02/2012 8:37 pm

President Obama promised that if you have health insurance now, it won't change. Here are sevn ways he lied:

1) Under the new law your insurer can't drop your coverage after you get sick. This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

2) Your children can continue to be insured under your plan until they are 26. (Click and read this.) This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

3) New coverage is added, including preventative care like mammograms and colonoscopies with no "out of pocket" like charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance. This is a change in the insurance you already have. Obama lied.

4) If you pay for your own insurance and your income is below a certain level, you will receive subsidies to help pay for your insurance. Even if you earn four times the federal poverty rate, or currently about $93,000 for a family of four, you will have to pay no more than 9.5 percent of your income. This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

5) The law prohibits insurance companies from placing a "lifetime cap" on the amount of coverage you have. Many people were discovering that they reached this cap right when they needed insurance the most. This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

6) The cost of your insurance will be lower than it would be without this law. There are several ways the new law will lower the cost of your insurance. First, by requiring people to have insurance, people can't "free load" by showing up at the emergency room without insurance. Currently when this happens hospitals charge more to everyone else. So the new law's "mandate" stops the "free loaders" -- the cause of these extra charges -- from running up your insurance cost. Also, the new law's "80/20 Rule" says insurers have to use 80 percent of their revenue for health care. This even means you might get a rebate. This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

7) Insurers won/'t be able to keep you from getting insurance or charge you more based on a pre-existing condition. This is a change in the coverage you already have. Obama lied.

Therefore

So President Obama lied when he said that if you already have health coverage you don't have to worry about changes! Therefore we need to get rid of the law so insurers can cut you off after you get sick, charge you for preventative care, cut your children off from having insurance, keep you from getting insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, place a lifetime "cap" on your coverage and make you pay more! It's time to put some teeth into "let him die!"

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JackHoffman
Pundit
06:00 PM on 07/03/2012
Well played, Sir.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
My2SenseHear
proud to be a frolicking conception-fueled demon
09:31 AM on 07/03/2012
This opinion is very misleading. These are all changes that rolled out when ACA was first implemented in I believe 2010 so Obama did make these changes with the ACA, we've just been fortunate enough to hVe them implemented in 2010 instead of 2014. Remember - the ACA is a 4-year roll out program and we are in year 2. States -26 of them filed suit against the ACA. If the Supreme Court had overturned the ACA, all of these thing that we 'already had' would be gone because we have them thanks to ACA.
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SamEllison
I feel so clean!
01:43 PM on 07/03/2012
Yes it's tongue-in-cheek, this is what Romney is running on.
These things proved so popular they were to remain even
if the SCOTUS ruled against the ACA.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
My2SenseHear
proud to be a frolicking conception-fueled demon
02:21 PM on 07/03/2012
Glad it is tongue-in-cheek! Sometimes I read things very literally, especially before my coffee. :-)
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dirtydog1776
rub my soft, furry, objectivist tummy
07:59 AM on 07/03/2012
I, with others, never believed that Obama lied about changes to health insurance. What he did lie about was cost, how it was going to be financed and how it promises so much it cannot deliver.

He let people assume that all changes or "lack of changes" would cost very little or nothing or all. The truth is that they will be very expensive, will be financed by spiraling debt, higher costs, slew of new taxes ( visit: http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-tax-hikes-obamacare-a5758 )

Costs will spiral out of control, bankrupt many small businesses, give huge amounts of power to politicians, bureaucrats who will make decisions for individuals.

Obama, Democrats have never answered questions as to where all new doctors, medical personnel, hospitals, drugs and supplies will come from to meet the increased demands for services as 40 million people are given insurance that they pay very little for or is free (means other people pay for it).

It takes 12 years to train doctors. People now wait 2-3 months to see specialists right now, so with increased demand, price controls, rationing and even death panels (called by some other innocuous name) will be necessary. (None of these actions will work.)

Many doctors will find that government payments are way too low and many will likely quit or be forced out of business, further aggravating the supply problem.

ObamaCare is all empty promises, smoke and mirrors and a blatant attempt to buy votes.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JackHoffman
Pundit
06:03 PM on 07/03/2012
You're deluded. We already pay $58 billion/yr so 'free-loaders' can access health care through ERs. That's a tax on you and me.
04:21 AM on 07/03/2012
I get the impression the word 'lie' is the first word a baby learns in America. Everything is a 'lie' if it stirs up anger and hatred. In the UK we use the word differently to mean 'an incorrect statement that is intended to deceive', in which case Obama can't be accused of lying.
07:47 AM on 07/03/2012
That's exactly what it means here lie=incorrect statement causes anger anoter meaning propaganda.
JVene
Software Engineer, Parent, Cook & Musician
08:49 AM on 07/03/2012
The political polarization is rather jolting to the majority of us not on the extremes. Both extremes do this somewhat, but it's really prevalent from the right wing. Left pundits will hurl 'fascist' with some abandon, but the right has the larger modified vocabulary.

Traitor isn't just an act of sedition any more. It's a charge one party (typically Republicans) makes against the other when they say just about anything. Ann Coulter may be one of the originators. It's most recent misuse is against party members deemed insufficiently extreme, or of a judge ruling out of character (recently punctuated).

Liberal has become a pejorative in the right of center diction. Socialism, communism, Marxism and fascism have become interchangeable darts thrown at people, law and policies the right doesn't approve.

Fact has changed definition, along with opinion. Both sides spout opinion fashioned as a statement of fact, and now disagree with facts as though they were opinions.

Science, study, research (and funding of it) are now considered play toys of political objectives, alternately used to profess unfounded opinions or object to opposition of preconceived ideology. They are frequently used as pejoratives, especially on the subjects of evolution and global warming.

I'm not sure math works the same way it used to, either, given our budget discussions.

History has mutated; it refers to patriotic fiction now.

Tax, penalty and mandate are recent, infamous language mutilations.

Health and care are being reconsidered.

Rational and reality may require adjustment, too.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ckdogs
Veritas
01:39 AM on 07/03/2012
Look at the furor that's going on over the ACA - which survived by the skin of its' teeth. There's no way in hell that a single payer plan will ever pass in the current political climate. So instead of being grateful that this was passed (after how many years of trying?), progressives are bitching that it isn't more perfect. No, it's not as efficient or low cost as single payer, and it is a for profit industry, but on the other hand there is not one monolithic system. There are choices. Doctors have choices as to how they wish to practice and patients have choices. So look at the plusses of this plan and vote for the guy who will keep it and improve it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jdubhub
01:12 AM on 07/03/2012
What gets me is Republicans say "we need to do this" or "we need to do that", but they don't DO squat. They've had ample opportunity to spend their own political capital to get common sense health care reform passed (with both chambers of Congress and the White House), but they chose to pass the Bush Tax Cuts (while promising to balance the budget regardless), start two unfunded wars, and pass unfunded Medicare Part D (using the buying power of the U.S. government to pay retail for prescription coverage--a real deal for Big Pharma--while championing the "free market" by making it illegal to get cheaper alternatives in Canada). They even ran in 2010 on "repeal and replace", voting symbolically to "repeal" while never making a real attempt to "replace".

If the Republicans are not going to actually DO anything for much needed health care reform, they should at least have the good sense to get out of the way of the people who are doing something.
geezernerd
retired former Silicon Valley nerd
12:17 AM on 07/03/2012
The problem is that profit-oriented insurance companies are involved in healthcare at all.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
dirtydog1776
rub my soft, furry, objectivist tummy
08:07 AM on 07/03/2012
I am sure that your retirement fund includes companies that make profits......that is how you get your monthly check. But people who invest in insurance companies deserve their monthly check as well.

You might claim that health insurance is too important to be left to such companies, but where do you draw the line? Someone could claim that cars are too important to people to be made and sold by profit oriented companies. Where is the line drawn? Should you have the power to make it, or are you content to let corrupt politicians make such choices. We have in the past and the results has been costly and disastrous.

What is scarier is the politicians and bureaucrats taking over and making decisions for people, running up huge debts, increasing their power, buying votes and special favors, new taxes and controls........but without evil profit.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
pixeloid
Reality has a liberal bias.
11:33 PM on 07/02/2012
OMG! Current coverage will improve. Oh, the horror!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Gnarkill
peoples is peoples
10:48 PM on 07/02/2012
Here are sevn ways he lied. Sevn from Norway?! Let's get em! ;D
10:12 PM on 07/02/2012
Insurance companies were not elected by US voters nor do they answer to us. What gives them the right to collect our earnings legally enforced upon every man, woman and child in America for perpetuity to provide their own corporate profits? ACA does have the above provisions to make insurance companies do the right thing but insurance companies should not be in healthcare at all. They are the ones who raised costs and caused cost-cutting that decimated the quality of healthcare in America.

The lie you are following is it has to be that we either, a.)don't have any of those things you listed which are all admirable, OR, b.) it must be done in this one way & no other way at all. That is certainly not true.

- cricketdiane
11:10 PM on 07/02/2012
I agree that insurance companies should not be part of our health care system. They are driven by profits, not by providing health care. Denying health care to those who need it is actually a goal to increase profits. While health insurance companies have been making record profits, more and more Americans are unable to afford health care. There is something terribly wrong with this system.

The only system that makes sense is single payer, Medicare for All. Insurance companies have 25% overhead to cover costs for advertising, exorbitant salaries for CEOs and profits for shareholders. The overhead cost for Medicare is 3-5% which obviously makes health care more affordable. Also, everyone understands Medicare so there is no mystery.

One especially brilliant aspect of Obamacare is that states are free to opt out if they create a state system that covers the same number of people at the same cost or better. This calls the bluff of Republicans who say they want to repeal and replace Obamacare. All they have to do is come up with a better system!

Vermont has already started making plans for a single-payer system and other states like California are considering it. I predict that eventually, blue states will have universal care and the red states will continue to have overcrowded emergency rooms.
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Dave Johnson
12:37 AM on 07/03/2012
Because of the overwhelming power of the insurance companies and the huge amounts of money they can throw around this was the best that could be gotten. Obama and other Dems could have done it sooner, could have pushed harder for the public option (remember it was Lieberman who killed it with a filibuster threat) but this is what we got and it is because of the power of corporate money.

We need Medicare-for-All, but until we can rally enough people who understand the problem of corporations vs We, the People, this health care act helps a lot of people.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
John Nail
35 yr. vet in benefits & health industry
09:16 PM on 07/02/2012
Brilliant....spot on. Thanks
iridium53
Semper Fi
09:14 PM on 07/02/2012
According to Palin and the rest of the Republicans, these are "freedoms" that Americans want.
That's why they feel they need to repeal the law.

Republicans say that Americans want:
the freedom to have their insurance cut you after they get sick,
the freedom to be chargeed for preventative care,
the freedom to have their children cut off from having insurance,
the freedom to be prevented from getting insurance if you have a pre-existing condition - and being stuck in place with their feudal lord corporation,
the freedom to have corporations place a lifetime "cap" on your coverage and,
the freedom to pay more for less

Republican FREEDOM....
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
09:55 PM on 07/02/2012
The freedom to have to declare bankruptcy because of a medical disaster.
iridium53
Semper Fi
10:02 PM on 07/02/2012
The FREEDOM to watch family members die in screaming pain without medication.
Or, even the FREEDOM to do it yourself.

FREEDOM!....
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RealityBaseCamp
My micro-bio did not meet someone's guidelines!
11:05 PM on 07/02/2012
. . . but not the freedom to be ABLE to declare bankruptcy in many cases.