On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi explained to the Commonwealth Club the reason Washington passed Obamacare. Even if everyone in America “loved” his own health care plan, Pelosi argued, Congress had to pass President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act because American health care was “unsustainable financially.”
Yes, Pelosi actually believes Washington had to get involved in health care to reduce its cost.
The Democratic leader then listed some of Obamacare’s new benefits: “free” annual checkups and preventive care and the ability of adult children to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26.
Josh Archambault, director of health care policy for the Boston-based Pioneer Institute, expressed the frustration felt by health policy wonks who know the new benefits “are not free.” The cost of physicals and services doesn’t go away.
“It’s OK to decide that we should offer something as a preventive service, but we must understand the trade-off of cost,” Archambault noted. “We all pay more as a result.”
Obama also has made the dubious claim that preventive care “saves money for families, for businesses, for government, for everybody.” Problem: It’s not true. Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf warned in 2009, “Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.” Elmendorf cited a 2008 New England Journal of Medicine article that reported that less than 20 percent of preventive services save money, whereas the rest drive up costs.
Pelosi also told the Commonwealth Club that the Affordable Care Act would mean as much for Americans’ economic security as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Her analogy brought to mind PolitiFact’s award of its 2010 “Lie of the Year” to the Republican assertion that Obamacare represented “a government takeover of health care.”
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5 comments:
She is also the bozo that said Congress must pass the health care bill to see what's in it. To this she has never read it, and wouldn't understand it if she did.
Forget the healthcare act and allow more small businesses to be created so that more people are hired and those young adults in their early and mid 20s can get a job and have their own health insurance so they don't have to rely on their parents.
Listen up folks. I don't know why you think it's in your best interest to do the bidding of Met Life and Blue Cross but it isn't.
One way or another, if you are lucky enough to live, you will be on Medicare. These insurance companies love Medicare because United gets to collect the premiums throughout your healthy years and then you go into Medicare just as you start to cost real money. Yes, some people have huge expenses covered by BC and Humana and the others, but they are the exception. Surely you know that the insurance model is one of insuring against interest, right? Well look it up before you open your mouth.
If you are 50 and find yourself with Chronic Kidney Disease- good luck keeping up with the premiums on your catastrophic plan which doesn't cover crap outside of a hospital. How many of you have $25,000 laying around to pay the co-pay for a heart transplant and another $10,000 (required to be in the bank by donor managers) for the drugs?
Doesn't it make more sense for all of us to pay into Medicare all of our working lives, and being covered by Medicare all of our lives, then to give all of our cash to Aetna and all of our bills to Medicare?
Stop buying into the BS put out by Rush Limbaugh. He has millions of dollars in the bank to pay for his healthcare, and Clear Channel or whomever carries a giant policy on him. You aren't Rush Limbaugh, you're a machinist, lawyer, farmer, doctor, carpenter, ie someone with a real job.
- David Hearne
9:48
Single Payer Healthcare (Medicare for all) is the best small business program the government could come up with. Right now, to start a business you have to put your entire family at risk, unless you have a wife working for the hospital, the government, or the university. You can't afford health insurance when starting up a small business and it's IRRESPONSIBLE to go without.
SIngle Payer makes it easier to start a business because you pay into the system you will ultimately be drawing out of rather than the real estate portfolio of Liberty Mutual.
Single Payer makes it easier to change jobs or start a business which is precisely why the insurance companies and large employers despise the concept.
Get smart.
- David Hearne
Get ready for another stimulus!
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