The Consequences of Repealing The Affordable Care Act

May 19, 2012 — Ron Chusid

It is understandable that there are portions of the Affordable Care Act which Republican might want to repeal. There are even some aspects which I don’t agree with–but the bill in its entirety is far better than the former status quo. John Boehner says that everything must go:

“We voted to fully repeal the president’s healthcare law as one of our first acts as a new House majority, and our plan remains to repeal the law in its entirety,” Boehner said to reporters. “Anything short of that is unacceptable.”

Repealing everything would mean:

  • Insurance companies would be able to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions
  • Insurance companies would be able to drop people should they get sick and cost them too much money
  • Many young people up to age 26 now covered under their parents’ policies would have to buy their own policies
  • The plans to eliminate the donut hole for Medicare Part D prescription plans would be dropped, increasing costs for seniors
  • The limitations on how much profit an insurance company can make off policies would be dropped–along with the rebates many customers will soon be receiving
  • Small businesses would lose tax breaks for providing health care to employees
  • There would be an increase in the deficit according to CBO projections
Posted in Congress, Health Care, Republicans. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

Romney Unable To Handle Health Care Questions From Jay Leno

March 28, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Mitt Romney is having a tough time answering questions on health care, even from Jay Leno:

On health care, Leno pushed Romney to explain what he would offer Americans with pre-existing medical conditions so that they might retain their coverage, perhaps the most popular provision of the president’s healthcare law.

“People with pre-existing conditions, as long as they have been insured before, they are going to be able to continue to have insurance,” Romney said, describing his vision for health care if the Affordable Care Act were to be struck down or repealed.

“Suppose they haven’t been insured,” Leno countered.

“If they are 45 years old and they show up and say I want insurance because I have heart disease, it’s like, ‘Hey guys. We can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you are well and then if you get ill, you are going to be covered,’” Romney responded.

But when Leno pushed back, telling Romney he had friends who had worked in the auto industry who had never had insurance before and now were able to get coverage, Romney seemed to soften his stance somewhat.

“We’ll look at a circumstance where someone is ill and hasn’t been insured so far, but people who have the chance to be insured – if you are working in the auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure their employees, you look at the circumstances that exist – but people who have done their best to get insured are going to be able to be covered,” Romney said. “But you don’t want everyone saying, ‘I am going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.’ That doesn’t make sense. But you get defined rules and get people in who are playing by the rules.”

Leno  turned out to be a harder interviewer than most of the journalists in the mainstream media, actually asking a sensible follow up question. In the past Romney, like most Republicans, supported an individual mandate because of situations such as this, but he has flip flopped on that. I’d also like to know how he would handle the common situation of people losing their insurance coverage because of becoming too ill to work, along with the frequent cases of people losing their insurance because their employer dropped coverage.

Romney’s inability to give a sensible answer is characteristic of his entire campaign. Perhaps this is why Romney’s unfavorability rating has hit 50 percent, why Obama now leads Romney by 11 percent in a head to head match-up, and why Obama leads in key battleground states. Of course Romney isn’t helping himself by telling a “funny anecdote” about his father closing down a factory.

 

Posted in Health Care, Mitt Romney, Polls. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

Romney Spreading Misinformation As He Declines Medicare, But Response From Think Progress Isn’t Without Its Own Errors

March 12, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Mitt Romney has made a lot of mistakes during this campaign, from his $10,000 bet to listing the number of American cars his family owns, including his wife’s two Cadillacs. He made another error today which might harm him with the senior vote–announcing he will not sign up for Medicare when he turns 65. This hardly makes him appear to be concerned about the future of the program.

Besides being out of touch with the concerns of voters, Mitt Romney has a very difficulty time differentiating between fact and fiction. His dishonesty reaches the levels previously seen by George Bush and Richard Nixon. I spent the day treating patients, many of whom are on Medicare. Medicare has been a highly successful program which provides health care to those over 65 and many who are disabled. Fortunately, while I was busy, Think Progress has looked at Romney’s lies about Medicare. Romney’s campaign released five questions about the program, most based upon misinformation (but Think Progress did get two points wrong).

QUESTION: Why Is President Obama Ending Medicare As We Know It By Allowing It To Go Bankrupt In Less Than 15 Years?

FACT: Medicare is not going bankrupt. The Congressional Budget Office reports that one portion — Medicare Part A or hospital insurance — will become “insolvent.” As Igor Volsky has reported, “Dedicated revenues will not be sufficient to pay all of its bills and the hospital fund will meet about 90 percent of its commitments, rather than the full 100 percent. In the succeeding years that shortfall will slowly widen and then contract, so that in 2085, Medicare could pay out 88 percent of its obligations.” By lowering annual payment updates to providers, savings from the Affordable Care Act will extend the life of the trust fund by nine years.

QUESTION: Why Is President Obama Ending Medicare As We Know It By Funding Obamacare Through $500 Billion In Medicare Cuts For Today’s Seniors?

FACT: The health law does not cut Medicare’s current budget. As ThinkProgress has previously explained, it slows the growth in the program by removing $500 billion from future spending over the next 10 years — not cutting from current senior’s benefits. The cuts help stabilize Medicare by eliminating overpayments and slowly phasing in payment adjustments that encourage greater efficiency. As a result, the law extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by nine years and allows seniors to retain all of their guaranteed Medicare benefits.

QUESTION: Why Is President Obama Ending Medicare As We Know It By Creating An Unaccountable Board To Ration Care For Today’s Seniors?

FACT: The proposal is statutorily prohibited from rationing benefits or increasing co-pays and will go into effect unless Congress acts to alter the proposal or discontinue automatic implementation. And the board will be composed of doctors, economists, and consumer representatives who will be confirmed by the Senate and will be tasked with designing a savings plan if health care spending increases beyond a certain threshold.

QUESTION: Why Is President Obama Ending Medicare As We Know It By Destroying Medicare Advantage For Today’s Seniors?

FACT: Far from destroying Medicare Advantage, the choices available through the program are “stronger than ever,” the White House reported in February. Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House deputy chief of staff for domestic policy, explained that premiums for Medicare Advantage are lower and enrollment has been higher since the Affordable Care Act made the changes to Medicare Advantage, which Republicans derided. “As reported last year, 99.7 percent of people with Medicare still have access to Medicare Advantage plans,” DeParle said.

QUESTION: Why Is President Obama Ending Medicare As We Know It By Ending Access To Care For Today’s Seniors?

FACT: As has been explained, the Afforable Care Act does not cut current benefits, is not disappearing, and has actually expanded options for seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage. And many presidents have made changes to Medicare since 1965, including Republican idol Ronald Reagan, without ending care for seniors or destroying Medicare. Reagan even instituted a series of reforms that are strikingly similar to some of the payment changes included in the Affordable Care Act (policies Romney now refers to as cuts or price controls).

There are a some further clarifications which should be made. Regarding the false claims of Medicare going bankrupt, while neither Part A or B is going to go bankrupt (unless we have Republicans managing the budget), it is Part A and not B which is at greater risk without changes. Romney will be in Part A and is declining Part B, so his decision could not be related to concerns about Medicare B being fiscally sound.

Romney is also wrong about his claims of cuts to Medicare. The cuts were to subsidies to private insurance plans which receive more money to care for Medicare patients than patients in the government plan. If the free market is always so superior to government, as conservatives believe, why does it cost more to care for the same patients in private Medicare Advantage plans than in the government plan? Of course it comes as no surprise that Republicans favor corporate welfare for the insurance industry.

The post at Think Progress, however, makes two mistakes in discussing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which is opposed in its present form by many Democrats as well as Republicans. First, the prohibition against rationing is virtually meaningless. The IPAB could do many things which could reduce Medicare benefits as long as it is not called rationing. It could also change the structure of Medicare in ways which could reduce access to care, as we’ve seen with the fiasco following the implementation of  a flawed payment formula which has already made it more difficult for many Medicare patients to be accepted by physicians.

The second major error made by the post at Think Progress is to claim that proposals from the IPAB “will go into effect unless Congress acts to alter the proposal or discontinue automatic implementation.” I’ve seen many liberal blogs defend the IPAB based upon a mistaken belief that its proposals are subjected to an up or down vote by Congress  The IPAB is structured so that it will be virtually impossible for their rulings to be overturned by Congress. (The original House version of the health care reform legislation did not make this mistake as was the case with the Senate version).

An IPAB which is not accountable to Congress risks causing harm even if their intentions are good. The situation could be far worse if it becomes dominated by conservatives who are hostile to the program. Does anyone really think it would be a good idea to risk that in 2013 Mitt Romney, should he be elected, and the Republicans could pack the IPAB with people who share their hostility to Medicare? Not only would it not be possible to block the recommendations of such a board under a Republican government, it would also be difficult or impossible to reverse them even should Democrats be elected afterwards.

Posted in Barack Obama, Blogs & Social Media, Health Care, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Rick Santorum Has Become Obsessed With The Guillotine

February 9, 2012 — Ron Chusid

With the GOP primary battle changing, instead of the insanity of Newt Gingrich, we now get to hear more of the insane views of Rick Santorum. We already knew about his desire to use government to regulate the sex lives of Americans and nationalize each woman’s womb, but it goes much further than this. Santorum now has a thing for guillotines–which should be very scary to those who realize how often conservative attacks on liberals are actually cases of conservatives projecting their own faults on liberals, such as the conservative propensity for big government and irresponsible government spending when in power.

Another important distinction between Obama and his Republican opponents is that Obama supports separation of church and state and freedom of religion (the two are inseparable) while the Republicans do not. (So much for their false claims from conservatives of supporting the views of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.) Sticking with the generally valid premise that conservatives generally attack liberals over matters that conservatives are actually guilty of, the Republicans have fabricated an imaginary war on religious freedom. Santorum has even tied this into health care reform. I guess he thinks that God wants insurance companies to be allowed to deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions and terminate coverage for the sick.

First there was this statement from Santorum yesterday:

They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.

Today Santorum suggested that the left wants public decapitations and that the Affordable Care Act is the first step:

It was a secular revolution on which we relied on the goodness of eacother. This is the left’s view of where America should go. And of course where did France go? To the guillotine. To tyranny. If there are no rights that government needs to respect, then what we see with ObamaCare is just the beginning of what government will do to you.

Beyond all the obvious insanity in Santorum’s statements, he ignores the fact that the Founding Fathers created the United States as the world’s first secular state. We have far too many examples of how the religious fanaticism of people like Rick Santorum leads to the destruction of liberty.

Posted in Health Care, Rick Santorum, Separation of Church and State. Tags: , , , . 9 Comments »

Andrew Sullivan’s Defense of Barack Obama

January 17, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Yesterday I referred to Andrew Sullivan’s article on Barack Obama in Newsweek. It is worth repeating more of what he wrote in response to the common attacks from the right wing:

The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.

You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama.

The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. It is based on the individual mandate, an idea pioneered by the archconservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, and, of course, Mitt Romney, in the past. It does not have a public option; it gives a huge new client base to the drug and insurance companies; its health-insurance exchanges were also pioneered by the right. It’s to the right of the Clintons’ monstrosity in 1993, and remarkably similar to Nixon’s 1974 proposal. Its passage did not preempt recovery efforts; it followed them. It needs improvement in many ways, but the administration is open to further reform and has agreed to allow states to experiment in different ways to achieve the same result. It is not, as Romney insists, a one-model, top-down prescription. Like Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative, it sets standards, grants incentives, and then allows individual states to experiment. Embedded in it are also a slew of cost-reduction pilot schemes to slow health-care spending. Yes, it crosses the Rubicon of universal access to private health care. But since federal law mandates that hospitals accept all emergency-room cases requiring treatment anyway, we already obey that socialist principle—but in the most inefficient way possible. Making 44 million current free-riders pay into the system is not fiscally reckless; it is fiscally prudent. It is, dare I say it, conservative.

On foreign policy, the right-wing critiques have been the most unhinged. Romney accuses the president of apologizing for America, and others all but accuse him of treason and appeasement. Instead, Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. And when the moment for decision came, the president overruled both his secretary of state and vice president in ordering the riskiest—but most ambitious—plan on the table. He even personally ordered the extra helicopters that saved the mission. It was a triumph, not only in killing America’s primary global enemy, but in getting a massive trove of intelligence to undermine al Qaeda even further. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted.

Sullivan also responded to attacks from the left which can be seen in the full article. Sullivan does respond to the most vocal opponents, who make up a tiny minority. The Obama administration is also bracing for further criticism from the left over  his proposed budget. While there are reasons to object to some of Obama’s policies, most liberals seem to understand the limitations of what Obama can accomplish in our political system. Plus we realize that no matter what objections we have to Obama’s policies, none of these issues would be made better by having a Republican in the White House.

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Education, George Bush, Health Care, Mitt Romney, National Security, Newt Gingrich, Terrorism, Torture. Tags: , , , , , . 7 Comments »

How Many Times Can Republicans Tell The Same Lies About Health Care Reform And Have The Media Repeat Them As News?

December 28, 2011 — Ron Chusid

I don’t know which is worse, that a major party candidate would tell such a lie or that a major news organization would cover it without pointing out the facts. Rick Perry is repeating the same type lie frequently made by Republicans that the Affordable Care Act would deny people care. This is from NBC:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday warned that President Obama’s health reform law could result in the death of ill patients, relating the story of a cancer patient he met Tuesday at a campaign stop in Creston, Iowa.

“She came up to me and she said ‘Governor, if you don’t get rid of Obamacare, I’m dead,” he recounted. “She said they will never take care of me. And that’s a powerful testimony by that lady.”

A random person makes a factually untrue statement and it becomes a news story because a dishonest Republican candidate repeats it.

The reality is the opposite of what is claimed by Perry. There is absolutely nothing in the Affordable Care Act which would limit care to cancer patients such as this. There are no “death panels.” In reality, healthcare reform became necessary because of the large number of people who really are dying without the needed reforms. Today, many cancer patients do not receive health care because they cannot afford insurance. ObamaCare is changing that.  Before the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies would refuse to sell insurance to people with a history of cancer (and many other problems), and some would drop the coverage of cancer patients to save money.

We expect such lies from Republican candidates, but couldn’t the news media do a better job of covering such false claims?

 

Posted in Health Care, News Media, Rick Perry. Tags: , . 8 Comments »

Woman With Breast Cancer And No Insurance Changes Her View Of ObamaCare

December 6, 2011 — Ron Chusid

Health care reform has become unpopular because most people fail to understand what is in the Affordable Care Act and have heard many false claims from the right wing noise machine. Most people support most of the provisions, even if they say they oppose the plan. The Los Angeles Times has a report on one woman with breast cancer who changed her mind after experiencing the benefits after losing her health insurance. She had initially believed the misinformation being spread and opposed health care reform, but her opinion changed when she saw the actual benefits. She concluded:

If you are fortunate enough to still be employed and have insurance through your employers, you may feel insulated from the sufferings of people like me right now. But things can change abruptly. If you still have a good job with insurance, that doesn’t mean that you’re better than me, more deserving than me or smarter than me. It just means that you are luckier. And access to healthcare shouldn’t depend on luck.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been saved by the federal government’s Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It’s part of President Obama’s healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It’s not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it’s a start, and for me it’s been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

Which brings me to my apology. I was pretty mad at Obama before I learned about this new insurance plan. I had changed my registration from Democrat to Independent, and I had blacked out the top of the “h” on my Obama bumper sticker, so that it read, “Got nope” instead of “got hope.” I felt like he had let down the struggling middle class. My son and I had campaigned for him, but since he took office, we felt he had let us down.

So this is my public apology. I’m sorry I didn’t do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I’m getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says “Got nope.” It will say “ObamaCares.”

I previously cited another woman who reported on the benefits she received from the Pr-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.

Posted in Barack Obama, Health Care. Tags: , . 11 Comments »

Majority Support Provisions Of Affordable Care Act

November 30, 2011 — Ron Chusid

A Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows the same trend that has been present in most polls on health care reform–most people support the specific measures in the act  (with one notable exception) but are misinformed about what is contained in the Affordable Care Act:

  • After taking a negative turn in October, the public’s overall views on the ACA returned to a more mixed status this month.  Still, Americans remain somewhat more likely to have an unfavorable view of the law (44%) than a favorable one (37%).
  • The survey also finds that individual elements of the law are viewed favorably by a majority of the public.  The law’s most popular element, viewed favorably by more than eight in ten (84%) and “very” favorably by six in ten, is the requirement that health plans provide easy-to-understand benefit summaries.  Also extremely popular are provisions that would award tax credits for small businesses (80% favorable, including 45% very favorable) and provide subsidies to help some individuals buy coverage (75% favorable, including 44% very favorable), as well as the provision that would gradually close the Medicare doughnut hole (74% favorable, including 46% very favorable) and the  “guaranteed issue” requirement  that prohibits health plans from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions (67% favorable, including 47% “very” favorable).
  • Despite strongly partisan reaction to the law overall, many of its provisions are popular among Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.  The elements of the law with the highest levels of bipartisan support include requiring plans to publish easy-to-understand summaries (88% of Democrats, 87% of independents, and 76% of Republicans favorable), tax credits to small businesses (88%, 77%, and 73%, respectively), and allowing individuals to appeal their health plans’ decisions to an independent reviewer (82%, 70%, and 70%, respectively).
  • Far and away the least popular element of the health reform law is the individual mandate, the requirement that individuals obtain health insurance or pay a fine. More than six in ten (63%) Americans view this provision unfavorably, including more than four in ten (43%) who have a “very” unfavorable view.
  • More than a year and half after health reform was enacted, there is much about the law that the public still does not know, including some of its more popular elements. For example, about four in ten (42%) are unaware of the law’s most popular provision, requiring health plans to produce straightforward benefits summaries.  The least well-known provisions — eliminating cost-sharing for preventive services and the medical loss ratio requirement, which fewer than four in ten recognize as being included in the law — are each favored by at least six in ten people, including a third who see each as “very” favorable.
  • Substantial shares also incorrectly believe the law does two specific things that it does not.  For instance, more than half (56%) think the law includes a new government-run insurance plan to be offered along with private plans (while another 13% don’t know if the law does this). And a third (35%) think the law allows a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare (with another 12% saying they don’t know). Those numbers have changed little in the past year.

While most people do support the actual provisions of the Affordable Care Act, general polling on opinions on health care reform often provide negative results for three reasons: 1) Many people are unaware of the benefits which are in the act (and which they support), 2) Many people believe items which are not in the act are contained in it, and 3) many oppose the individual mandate.

As I’ve pointed out many times before, the individual mandate is an old Republican idea which the Democrats foolishly adopted, as opposed to utilizing other possible measures to deal with the free rider problem. Most of the current Republican candidates are on record as having supported the mandate in the past. This not only includes Mitt Romney, who has taken both sides on virtually every issue during his career, but has also included current front-runner Newt Gingrich as can be seen in this video:

Gawker summarizes:

At a forum in 2005, alongside then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA), Gingrich explained the tradeoffs that both the right and the left would have to make in health care: For the right, some transfer of wealth is involved in providing health care for the working poor, the disabled, and other groups. And for the left, individuals should still have control over their health care, rather than total government management.

“I mean, I am very opposed to a single-payer system – but I’m actually in favor of a 300 million-payer system. Because one of my conclusions in the last six years, and founding the Center for Health Transformation, and looking at the whole system is, unless you have a hundred percent coverage, you can’t have the right preventive care, and you can’t have a rational system, because the cost-shifts are so irrational, and create second-order problems.”

This led Gingrich to a few conclusions of how to implement such a system: Convert Medicaid into a health insurance voucher system as it applies to the working poor (on the rationale that the creation of food-stamps do not involve the government running its own grocery stores); Create very large risk pools for individuals to purchase insurance (i.e., exchanges); and minimize insurance companies from cherry-picking customers.

“I know I risk not sounding as right-wing as I should, to fit the billing,” Newt said at one point, which did indeed trigger some audience laughs.

Gingrich then invoked the example of welfare reform in the 1990′s – perhaps his single biggest accomplishment from when he was Speaker - and how it got people off of the welfare rolls.

But my point to conservatives is, it’s a model of responsibility. If I see somebody who’s earning over $50,000 a year, who has made the calculated decision not to buy health insurance, I’m looking at somebody who is absolutely as irresponsible as anybody who was ever on welfare. Because what they’ve said is, a) I’m gambling that I won’t get sick, and b) I’m gambling that if I do get sick, I can cheat all my neighbors.

Now when you talk to hospitals, a very significant part of their non-collectables are people who have money, but have calculated that it’s not worth the cost to collect it.

And so I’m actually in favor of finding a way to say, if you’re above whatever – whatever the appropriate income level is, you oughtta have either health insurance, or you oughtta post a bond. But we have no right, we have no right in this society, to have a free-rider approach if you’re well off economically, to say we’ll cheat our neighbors.

As Media Matters has previously pointed out, as late as 2008 Gingrich was still advancing the mandated insurance/bond approach for people above a determined income level.

It was a major mistake for Barack Obama to reverse his campaign position of opposing the mandate, adopting an old Republican position, and underestimating the degree to which Americans oppose being told what to do by government. If not for this mistake, I believe that support for health care reform in general, as well as for Obama’s reelection, would be much higher than they are now.

Posted in Barack Obama, Health Care, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Polls. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Another Success From ObamaCare

November 18, 2011 — Ron Chusid

While most of the Affordable Care Act is not yet in place, “ObamaCare” is already helping many people. This includes providing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions such as the woman above through the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan and reducing the number of young Americans going without insurance.

Posted in Barack Obama, Health Care. Tags: . 6 Comments »

Obama Opposes Suspension Of Long Term Care Plan

October 17, 2011 — Ron Chusid

Following last week’s news that the long term care plan in the Affordable Care Act was being suspended by HHS, Barack Obama weighed in, opposing the elimination of the program:

President Obama is against repealing the health law’s long-term-care CLASS Act and might veto Republican efforts to do so, an administration official tells The Hill, despite the government’s announcement Friday that the program was dead in the water.

“We do not support repeal,” the official said Monday. “Repealing the CLASS Act isn’t necessary or productive. What we should be doing is working together to address the long-term care challenges we face in this country.”

Over the weekend, The Hill has learned, an administration official called advocates of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act to reassure them that Obama is still committed to making the program work. That official also told advocates that widespread media reports on the program’s demise were wrong, leaving advocates scratching their heads.

While HHS is having problems with the start-up of the program as initially passed, in the long run the program will save money on health care expenses and help reduce the deficit according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Obama administration sold the healthcare law with the argument that it would lower the nation’s long-term health costs, and the CLASS Act was an important reason why.

CBO had scored the long-term-care program for people with disabilities as saving the nation $86 billion in spending over 10 years — that’s about 40 percent of the reform law’s $210 billion in total estimated deficit reduction over the next decade.

Posted in Barack Obama, Health Care. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »
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