Let's be clear about one thing from the beginning: the whole point of healthcare reform, the reason for it in the first place, what healthcare reform promised by Obama and Democrats in 2008 was supposed to do was two things: get healthcare coverage for the 40 million people who didnt have health insurance because they couldnt afford it and to drive down the obscene cost of healthcare for people who did. The promised public option would have accomplished both. Obamacare did neither.
Obama caved in to the health insurance companies who knew the public option would cost them money and even though the public option had the votes in the Democratically controlled congress to pass, Obama, buckling to the pressure from the health insurance lobby had Harry Reid remove it from the healthcare bill even after the public option was passed by the House.
Instead, what was finally voted on, what has been called Obamacare, was Obama and the Democrats' bait and switch which incredibly, allowed the insurance companies to write the most important part of the bill, what people would pay for healthcare coverage and what they would get for their money. In both cases, letting the insurance companies make that decision instead of offering the government run public option destroyed healthcare reform. And, deservedly destroyed the Democratic party's majority in congress since 2010 as their voters, betrayed by Obama and the Democrats on the single most important piece of legislation of his term, threw them out of congress.
Obamacare has been a momunmental failure on the two things healthcare reform was supposed to do, get healthcare coverage for the 40 million who didnt have it and to bring down the cost of health care for people who did. Obama and the Democrats with help from an either ignorant or sycophantic news media, have been brazenly lying about the number of uninsured who now have healthcare coverage who didnt have it before and have been trying to pass off the continued rise in healthcare costs as "success" because the rise has been slower.
First,the assertion that there are 20 million people who didnt have health care coverage who have it now because of Obamacare is as much a lie as anything that came out of the mouth of Richard Nixon. As you will easily see.
With Aetna announcing they are substantially reducing their presence on the Obamacare exchanges following the announcement by United Healthcare that they are leaving the exchanges altogether which follows the Inspector General report last year that 22 of the 23 state Obamacare exchanges are folding and closing down because they are hemorrhaging money because of low enrollments, none of these things would be happening if 20 million people had signed up for Obamacare. Or anywhere close to 20 million. A fact that even further detroys the credibility of most of the mainstream media who think their job is to repeat or not even check, the lies coming from Obama, the White House and Democrats on the "success" of Obamacare.
So it's time to look at again how we got here and how is it that Obama and Democrats and a sycophantic news media tried to claim success when it has been failing. Because all of them and Obama in particular have been lying about Obamacare from the day Obama caved in to pressure from the insurance companies and agreed to drop the public option from the healthcare reform bill but kept it quiet and to this day has never admitted while he and the Democrats have lied and covered it up.
And since that day, Obama has lied more about Obamacare than Nixon lied about Watergate. If Watergate was about abuse of power, Obama's sell out of the public option to the insurance companies and the bait and switch called Obamacare is certainly about misuse of power, the public trust,public policy and it's fallout.
The media along with Democrats have been repeating lies from the White House from the beginning. The latest was an article in the New York Times repeating the same White House bogus claim that there are 20 million people who signed up for Obamacare since its inception and now have health insurance they didnt have before.
There are no 20 million previously uninsured who signed up for health insurance because of Obamacare. Not even in Obama's dreams. Its only because Obama knows he can say anything and get away with it because most in the media are too incompetent, too lazy, too inept, too easily intimidated (as Ben Rhodes pointed out about the Iran deal) or too dishonest to question it, that Obama and Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, get away with it.
Unfortunately for Democrats it was voters who who didnt let them get away with it in 2010 and 2014 and they wont be able to keep getting away with it. Democrats could be headed for an October surprise and a defeat in November to go with the wipe out they experienced in 2010 and 2014 for the same reason, the massive failure of Obamacare. Both big defeats were predicted here in both 2010 and 2014 if Democrats didnt recognize Obamacare's failures and heed the warning and do something. They didnt and voters paid them back.
It doesn't take much more than grade school math to know the 2o million figure that the New York Times,Obama, Democrats and others parrot is false. But all you need is a double digit IQ and a minimum of common sense.
In 2008 the last year of the Bush administration the percentage of uninsured in America was 12.6%. Now, 8 years later, after 4 full years of Obamacare the number of uninsured is 9%. A measly drop of 3.6% in the number of uninsured. Do the math and you will see the numbers dont add up.
Based on a population of (approx) 335 million people, 12.6% represents about 40 million uninsured in 2008 a figure just about everyone agrees on. If the number has now dropped to 9% that would mean 30+ million are still without healthcare coverage and reduces the total number by 7-10 million, not 20 million. But keep in mind that in 2008 unemployment was over 9% which added to the rolls of the uninsured. Now unemployment is 4.9% which means about half of that 7-10 million reduction are simply people who went back to work and obtained coverage that way, not through Obamacare. Which leaves about 5 million who actually bought coverage through Obamacare and almost all of those were the older,sicker uninsured willing to pay the high premiums for insurance they couldnt get before. The rest were people who had individual insurance before and were looking for a better deal. Which explains why 22 of 23 state exchanges are closing and losing millions of dollars due to lack of enrollements and why insurers are leaving the exchanges.
So how did Obama get to claim 2o million? By doing what would have gotten the CFO of any company in America thrown in jail. He counted the same people twice. And three times. As you will see.
The first thing to know about Obamacare is that the public option, which was called "the centerpiece of healthcare reform" by Nancy Pelosi was something Obama had promised as part of his campaign as far back as 2007.
The public option not only could have passed easily since Obama was elected with the biggest Democratic congressional majority of any party in 60 years which included a 60-40 majority in the senate, it actually did pass. In the House. Why it never made it into law is because of one person. Barrack Obama. And the willinginess of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to go along. And then cover it up.
A CBS/ New York Times poll in 2009 showed 72% of the country wanted the public option and a staggering 66% said they'd be willing to pay higher taxes to get it. In other words it was a slam dunk both in terms of policy and politics. But as Democrats have shown ever since 2000, even when they can't lose they find a way.
The public option not only could have passed easily since Obama was elected with the biggest Democratic congressional majority of any party in 60 years which included a 60-40 majority in the senate, it actually did pass. In the House. Why it never made it into law is because of one person. Barrack Obama. And the willinginess of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to go along. And then cover it up.
A CBS/ New York Times poll in 2009 showed 72% of the country wanted the public option and a staggering 66% said they'd be willing to pay higher taxes to get it. In other words it was a slam dunk both in terms of policy and politics. But as Democrats have shown ever since 2000, even when they can't lose they find a way.
Obama, showing why he accomplished absolutely nothing in his 11 previous years of elected office before running for president, didn't have the principles, convictions, integrity or values to stand up to the pressure from the health insurance companies who lobbied him hard to drop it because it was going to cost them money. It's hard to have the courage of your convictions when you have neither.
Putting the health of the insurance companies ahead of the health of the American people Obama caved in and even though the public option had already passed the House, instructed Harry Reid to remove it from the senate version of the bill even though the votes were there in the senate to pass it also. Then Obama lied about it.
Obama campaigned on the public option and universal healthcare as far back as 2007 and every townhall meeting he had from June of 2009 till Feburary of 2010 was in support of the public option. In the end he proved what everyone knows now about Obama when it comes to anything whether healthcare reform or retaliation against Assad for using chemical weapons -- his word is worthless.
What the usual sycophants and incompetents in the news media didn't notice, was that late in 2009 and early 2010 the banners at Obama's town hall meetings changed from " healthcare reform" to " health insurance reform" signaling something was up. It was the first time the word "insurance" had been substituted for "care". And no one noticed. And Obama wasn't going to say.
It was the first indication Obama was going to pull a double cross. And he did.He had Reid remove the public option from the ACA, and replaced it with a provision allowing the insurance companies to write the part of the bill related to the exchanges, what would be offered and at what cost. If most Americans are slaves to the insurance companies when it comes to health care,(and they are) what Obama did was nothing less than the equivalent of letting the plantation owners write the Emancipation Proclimation. The irony is self evident. It was Obama's cave in
that is the sole reason the public option was not included in the ACA. And Obama, Democrats, and their Tea Party Left support groups like MoveOn and DFA have been lying about it and covering it up ever since.
It could be argued that the public option was the most important piece of legislation in terms of equality,establishing healthcare as a civil right, getting healthcare coverage for anyone who wanted it including the 40 million uninsured, something that had eluded presidents since Teddy Roosevelt, and doing more good for more people by leveling the playing field in a fundamental aspect of American life, than anything since the Civil Rights Act of 1965. And it was Obama who killed it.
It could be argued that the public option was the most important piece of legislation in terms of equality,establishing healthcare as a civil right, getting healthcare coverage for anyone who wanted it including the 40 million uninsured, something that had eluded presidents since Teddy Roosevelt, and doing more good for more people by leveling the playing field in a fundamental aspect of American life, than anything since the Civil Rights Act of 1965. And it was Obama who killed it.
When Jim Lerher at PBS asked Obama about the ACA being passed, Obama said "
I got 98% of everything I wanted". Lerher pointed out there was no public option. Obama's answer? " I never campaigned
for a public option". Which belongs with the Nixon claim that Watergate was just a third rate burglary.
Even the usually Obama-friendly Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC said Obama's statement was clearly a lie and within 24 hours Youtube exploded with Obama speeches going back to 2007 where he campaigned and advocated for both universal healthcare and the public option. Its goes without saying that the news media ignored Obama's biggest lie up to that point which concerned one of the most important policy decisions of the last 50 years and over 300 million Americans yet runs headlines about trivialities involving Trump's verbal gaffes and sarcasms.
Even the usually Obama-friendly Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC said Obama's statement was clearly a lie and within 24 hours Youtube exploded with Obama speeches going back to 2007 where he campaigned and advocated for both universal healthcare and the public option. Its goes without saying that the news media ignored Obama's biggest lie up to that point which concerned one of the most important policy decisions of the last 50 years and over 300 million Americans yet runs headlines about trivialities involving Trump's verbal gaffes and sarcasms.
In 2010, after the ACA was passed without the promised public option, Democratic voters paid the Democrats back handing them the biggest congressional defeat of any party in 80 years. Only two years into Obama's administration and winning the biggest congressional majority of any party in 60 years. And it was the sell out of the public option that is the sole reason.They lied about it then, and still do.
It was the same in 2014 after the first full year of Obamacare. The miserable performance of Obamacare was bad enough. But Obama added to it by throwing Senate Democrats under the bus just in time for the election. This time it was a lie of omission by Obama. To save his own skin.
Insurance polices were being cancelled and Republicans pounced pointing out Obama's promise that " if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance.
It caused many Democrats in the senate up for re-election to scramble. CNN repeatedly showed video clips of town hall meetings where Obama said " if you likeyour health insurance you can keep your health insurance". Except that Wolf Blitzer and everyone else at CNN as well as other journalists,producers and editors were either too incompetent, ignorant or too intimidated to point out that Obama never said "if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance" about Obamacare. Not once. He said it only about the public option which he was promoting at the time and eventually dropped. Obama said it defending the public option against Republican attacks that it was a government take over of healthcare. He pointed out it was only an option, no one was being forced to enroll in the public option and that " if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance". He never made that claim about what became Obamacare.
It was the same in 2014 after the first full year of Obamacare. The miserable performance of Obamacare was bad enough. But Obama added to it by throwing Senate Democrats under the bus just in time for the election. This time it was a lie of omission by Obama. To save his own skin.
Insurance polices were being cancelled and Republicans pounced pointing out Obama's promise that " if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance.
It caused many Democrats in the senate up for re-election to scramble. CNN repeatedly showed video clips of town hall meetings where Obama said " if you likeyour health insurance you can keep your health insurance". Except that Wolf Blitzer and everyone else at CNN as well as other journalists,producers and editors were either too incompetent, ignorant or too intimidated to point out that Obama never said "if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance" about Obamacare. Not once. He said it only about the public option which he was promoting at the time and eventually dropped. Obama said it defending the public option against Republican attacks that it was a government take over of healthcare. He pointed out it was only an option, no one was being forced to enroll in the public option and that " if you like your health insurance you can keep your health insurance". He never made that claim about what became Obamacare.
Rather than point that out, Obama kept his mouth shut. He let himself and
senate Democrats take an enormous hit on credibility rather than remind people that he dropped the public option. It would also be an admission that when he
said he never campaigned for the public option he lied.
The last thing Obama wanted to do was remind people of the public option in the first place and how much more effective it would have been than the junk called Obamacare.
The result was senate Democrats in 2014 took an enormous hit in the November elections which wiped out what was left of their slim majority.
The last thing Obama wanted to do was remind people of the public option in the first place and how much more effective it would have been than the junk called Obamacare.
The result was senate Democrats in 2014 took an enormous hit in the November elections which wiped out what was left of their slim majority.
The second thing to know,the politics aside is that as policy Obamacare is a massive failure, something Democrats and Obama's sycophants in the news media still wont admit.
As pointed out before, healthcare reform was supposed to do two things: get healthcare coverage
for the 35-40 million who couldn't afford it and so didn't have it and bring
down the obscene cost of health care and health insurance for
people who did. Its been a total failure on both counts where the public option would have succeeded.
Typcial of media sycophants, a recent article in the Huffington Post by a reporter named Jeffery Young pandering for White House wrote an article with the headline, "Obamacare Cuts Uninsured to Single Digits".
Except as pointed out earlier, the single digit is 9%.If the number of uninsured dropped only by 3%, the converse is that 97% of the uninsured looked at what Obamacare plans offered the last 3 years and said,"no thanks".
Almost none of the 32 million younger healthier uninsured signed up, the group every economist said was needed to make the bait and switch version of Obamacare work.
That they didnt shouldnt have surprised anyone. In places like New York City, rural Georgia, Montana, Wyoming and other parts of the country a single person making $40,000 a year and so not eligible for subsidies under Obamacare were looking at Bronze Plans intended to appeal to those who couldnt afford insurance that came with premiums as high as $600 a month, $6500 deductibles and 40% co-pays. No one in their right minds making $40,000 a year is going to pay $7200 a year for premiums for a health insurance policy where they have to pay out another $6500 before the policy covers everything and a 40% co-pay along the way. And just to rub more salt in the Obamacare wound, those policies were not accepted by the best doctors and hospitals. There are people who bought Bronze policies who had to travel more than 100 miles one way to see a doctor or clinic who would take the low end policies.
Welcome to Obamacare. Welcome to Hillary Clinton's idea of healthcare reform and what she has been defending.Welcome to Clinton's attack against Sanders' for saying Obamacare wasn't good enough and needed to be replaced with universal healthcare then accusing Sanders of "living in a hermetically sealed world".
That they didnt shouldnt have surprised anyone. In places like New York City, rural Georgia, Montana, Wyoming and other parts of the country a single person making $40,000 a year and so not eligible for subsidies under Obamacare were looking at Bronze Plans intended to appeal to those who couldnt afford insurance that came with premiums as high as $600 a month, $6500 deductibles and 40% co-pays. No one in their right minds making $40,000 a year is going to pay $7200 a year for premiums for a health insurance policy where they have to pay out another $6500 before the policy covers everything and a 40% co-pay along the way. And just to rub more salt in the Obamacare wound, those policies were not accepted by the best doctors and hospitals. There are people who bought Bronze policies who had to travel more than 100 miles one way to see a doctor or clinic who would take the low end policies.
Welcome to Obamacare. Welcome to Hillary Clinton's idea of healthcare reform and what she has been defending.Welcome to Clinton's attack against Sanders' for saying Obamacare wasn't good enough and needed to be replaced with universal healthcare then accusing Sanders of "living in a hermetically sealed world".
The 3% who did buy in are for the most part the older, sicker and most
desperate of the uninsured. Which is one reason why Aetna and United are
leaving. They are losing tens of millions covering those people and dont have the 32 million younger healthier uninsured
that the insurance pools needed for balance because the policies
offered through Obamacare were all overpriced junk.
So much junk that a year ago Obama admitted in the New York Times that the low end
bronze plans were "substandard." An antiseptic way of saying "garbage",
As for Obamacare numbers Obama has lied about them too from the beginning.
Starting with the numbers announced for 2013, the first year of Obamacare and the exchanges, Obama and the White House
started cooking the books. They claimed in the first year there were 7 million enrollments.
First, even if the number was real (it wasn't) 7 million people signing up for
health insurance out of 40 million who didnt have it because they couldnt afford it is pathetic. The public option would have covered all of them. But the real Obamacare sign up number is lower.
According to the insurance companies who are to be believed more than White House spin, 20% of those who signed up
never sent in their first month's premium which invalidated the enrollments. Which
brings the number down to 5.6 million. Another 5-10% (we'll use the lower
number) were multiple enrollments by the same person who thought because of the infamous web
site glitches the first one didn't go through. That brings the number down to
5.3 million. And another 5% lied on their applications about their income to try and
qualify for subsidies they didnt qualify for bringing the actual number down to about 5 million or
less not 7 million. And that includes all sign ups which included people who had health insurance and were looking for a better deal, not just those who previously didn't have insurance.
The next year Obama announced that the number of people who signed up for
health insurance in 2014 who didn't have it before was 16 million. He said it repeatedly. He said in a speech to Catholic Hospitals. He said in his State of the Union message. It was and
still is a lie, the kind of careful lie where Obama has given himself an excuse if he was caught.
The claimed number of sign ups in 2014 was 9 million. That number is
also inflated for the same reasons cited earlier the true number closer to 8 million. But what Obama did in announcing 16 million was he counted the same people twice.
Obama got to 16 million by taking the 9 million claimed for 2014 and the 7
million claimed (falsely) for 2013 and added them to get to 16 million. The problem is that most of the 9 million in 2014 were part of the 7 million in 2013 and were renewing policies from the year before. They were not new sign ups. They were renewals from the year before. But Obama counted them as if they were new. They werent. They were the same people who bought policies in 2013. There were less than 2
million new enrollees in 2014. So the real total number of sign ups by the end of 2014 was about 6.7 million nationaly with adjustments. A pathetically small number. Which is why the biggest insurers are getting out, why premiums have skyrocketed and why healthcare exchanged have closed from lack of interest. Obama's claim that 16 million who previously didn't have health insurance got it through Obamacare is not only a lie its fraud.
Obama and Democrats and media parrots now claims 20
million in 2016. But the total number of those previously uninsured who now have insurance in the 8 years since 2008 is actually about 9-10 million out of the 40 million who had no coverage in 2008.And many of as a result of unemployment going from 9% to 4.9%.
It still leaves about 30 million today without healthcare coverage.Of that 9-10 million reduction only 6 million+ at most are a direct result of Obamacare. The rest are people who were unemployed in 2008 and went back to work or those who became eligible for expanded Medicaid, the only partially positive thing about Obamacare but still a failure in that it was left to the states to choose to implement or not. And many didnt.In Louisiana for example there are 278,000 people qualified for expanded Medicaid who didn't get it because the state chose not to participate.
As for the cost of healthcare in general, the second major prong of healthcare reform, that too has been a disaster.
It still leaves about 30 million today without healthcare coverage.Of that 9-10 million reduction only 6 million+ at most are a direct result of Obamacare. The rest are people who were unemployed in 2008 and went back to work or those who became eligible for expanded Medicaid, the only partially positive thing about Obamacare but still a failure in that it was left to the states to choose to implement or not. And many didnt.In Louisiana for example there are 278,000 people qualified for expanded Medicaid who didn't get it because the state chose not to participate.
As for the cost of healthcare in general, the second major prong of healthcare reform, that too has been a disaster.
Had tens of millions signed up for the public option as the polls showed they would have,the government would have had the leverage to negotiate better costs in both drugs and treatment. It would have brought the cost of health care way down,especially drugs. Obamacare? Costs keep skyrocketing but Obama calls it a success because costs are going up at a slower rate than before, which is Cuckoos Nest thinking which says an insane system of health care costs are still getting more insane but at a slower rate and thats success.
Premiums have been going up for everyone ever since Obamacare began and the
biggest rise will be this year. Insurers have submitted proposals around the
country of increases from 8% to has high as 60%. And while states can make
recommendations nothing they do is binding. Which means there could be an October surprise for Democrats when the actual numbers are released. And
with the steep rise in premiums, insurers leaving the marketplace and the state
exchanges closing there will be disastrous Obamacare smoking guns that this time Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democrats and a sycophantic news media wont be
able to cover up