Even More Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Yeah, yeah, I know this is another Health care rant, but this does a great job of showing just how willing to blatantly lie Far Right politicians are when it comes to attempting to discredit the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/oct/09/pat-roberts/pat-roberts-obamacare-killed-insurance-20000-kansa/

The facts are sooo different! In fact, while nationwide in states expanding medicare under the ACA, uninsured and charity hospital admissions are DOWN 30%!!!, in states like Florida, which returned federal medicaid grant money (thanks Rick [Skeletor] Scott) that figure is largely unchanged and the state's percentage of uninsured is, as well. 

Compounding the bullshit storm from the Far Right, family health care insurance costs nationwide have  risen a modest 3% (one of the lowest increases in years) and this stat is from the insurance industry, not the Government! The facts (remember facts, as in the truth?) are that the Affordable care Act is working well in those states which implemented it, and working Americans who couldn't afford medical insurance are now becoming insured, shifting some responsibility to the insured, vice the state or Feds.

 Stand by for the next shit storm if even one person has difficulty with the website during the next open enrollment period. How soon we forget the botched rollout of Bush's baby - Medicare part D, a much more limited program (although it cost $500 billion) passed only after Republicans bullied their own House members ( and they were the majority!!) and then by the thinnest of margins. The litany of complaints from those attempting to enroll are mirrors of the complaints about healthcare.gov, which, of course is a much  more far reaching and broad based program.

 This is a quote from the Bush Secretary of health and Human services, Michael Leavitt,  regarding the rollout of that program (Part D) "Normally, a system this complex can take up to three years to create. We built it in nine months, which left little time for testing. When the system started running, glitches caused delays. In the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2006, an HHS colleague visited a few pharmacies to see how Part D was working.

“How many Part D prescriptions have you been able to fill?” my colleague asked a busy pharmacist in Front Royal, Va.

The pharmacist answered, “None.”

 For those screaming about Healthcare.gov's 

early problems, it isn't the first time we've 

seen such problems, rather it's an 

opportunity to blame the President for problems which might well have been avoided if the Congress had devoted more time to passing legislation than to obstruction and delays which, in turn, delayed the start of web site construction.  For those actually capable of critical thinking,  a healthy dose of perspective is helpful. I will attempt to use facts, vice rhetoric in explaining some points.

 1) Cost of the ACA:  Only estimates are available, so I will use the CBO numbers which are definitely not biased either direction. Of a current US GDP of $16.8 Trillion, the highest number I can find of gross annual ACA cost is forecast for 2023, at 1.36 trillion. Ignoring probable GDP growth, that is about 8.1% of GDP. Actual percentage would, of course, be lower because of GDP growth, remember. Contrasting this expenditure, which has the Far Rightists screaming, the UK will spend just over 29% of  GDP on health care for their citizens. I guess the health of their people is more important to them, huh?         

2) The ACA is causing people to lose their health care. Of course, in some cases this has happened, as plans which provided too little coverage were deemed inadequate, but what passes unnoticed here is that pre-ACA about 17% of Americans lost their non-group plans annually for a variety of reasons, so the 18.6% who reported losing plans post ACA are about 1.6% more of those insured, the implication being that only about 1.6% of insureds lost their plan due to it's (their plan's) inadequacy per ACA guidelines. the ACA, of course taketh away, but also giveth, as the vast majority of those were able to find comparable or better ACA compliant plans at or very near the same cost as the inferior one they dropped, a fact never mentioned by the talking heads of the Far Right.

As we all know (or those of us who are awake and listening, know, Steve Forbes is a libertarian, and hardly a fan of the Obama administration, but here is the headline of a very recent article from his magazine:   "The Real Numbers On 'The Obamacare Effect' Are In-Now Let The Crow Eating Begin"

Read the truth (remember, derived from facts?) here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/03/10/the-real-numbers-on-the-obamacare-effect-are-in-now-let-the-crow-eating-begin/     

3) Talking heads (and other body parts) of the Far Right have hammered the issue of loss of insurance without stop, with Limbaugh as the liar in chief.Tragically, many believe their falsehoods, either due to tunnel vision or sheer imbecility. Reality reveals the truth to be the opposite. Millions more are insured under the ACA than before, and a large number of those were the most vulnerable among us, the 20 somethings who, recent grads or new to the workforce simply couldn't afford to get sick.A close second group is the self employed who make two much for Medicaid, and too little for decent health care (pre ACA) and I know several of both groups, including a PhD candidate who, as a substitute teacher had no health care coverage while pursuing a doctorate. In a nation where the brightest and best can't afford regular checkups, something is seriously amiss.

Summarizing very briefly: The ACA works, Far Rightists who deny it are Liars.