Scott Frankum, of LA California, has good comments on Grace's baloney:
Scott Frankum · Los Angeles, California
Grace,
Either you don’t really know much about health reform, or you’re purposely trying to influence low-context readers with misinformation. The real story is that ACA health reform makes every health care purchase a downward driver on costs and an upward driver on quality.
It isn’t accurate to claim anything at all about “Obamacare” causing increases until 2014 when the state insurance exchanges launch in tandem with expanding coverage to 30 Million more Americans. The Kaiser statistic is about increases based on the old system. As a minimum you’re misrepresenting facts. More likely, you’re lying knowingly.
There are not 500 million in new taxes. The regulations are limited to good governance. In other times the Radical Right would have referred to the mandate as a “personal responsibility clause”. Why are you lying... to readers, Grace?
The only increases attributable to reform are between 1 and 3 percent which pay for allowing children to stay on their parent’s policy until they’re 26. Here’s the link to Factcheck.org:
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/11/the...ance-premiums/.
The CBO number is 19,000 on page four, here:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc...f_Premiums.pdf And, this number is an average of premiums. The amount each business and employee pays varies by company. You’re lying about the rest.
You’re also leaving out that there will be means testing based on the federal poverty level. Many Americans will receive enough premium support to make insurance affordable. You’re also leaving out the part about how good health care is inherently cheaper than alternatives. We have to take the view of solving the real problem which is costs…..as a nation. And, to lower overall costs, everybody needs minimum health care. Otherwise, the emergency room visits and waiting to treat problems until they require surgeries will sink us under higher costs.
In the next paragraphs, to quote Reagan…”There you go, again”. Reform adds years to Medicare’s viability.
Massachusetts only worked on the expansion of coverage. It did not undertake the structural reforms that federal reform takes: electronic health records, moving from fee-for-service to pay for performance and coordinating care. You make a false equivalency.
The pre-reform health care system was destroying value. The way we know this is that costs increased 4 times faster than the cost of living over the past ten years. Federal health reform is the only way to curb cost increases. The strategy to do that is to make value = medical outcomes ÷ money spent.
So, which part don’t you like? Is it the electronic health records which remove a whole layer of costs while improving data entry errors, adverse drug reactions and the environment for tort reform? Or, do you not like the accountability that comes from knowing which doctors keep patients healthier and deliver real health care value at
www.healthcare.gov? Are you upset that we’ll now pay doctors for results rather than volume? Does it alarm you that now insurance companies can’t kick us off from coverage if we have a pre-existing health condition….as 30 percent of us do?
Grace, I’m calling you out. Stop lying to the American people about reform. We can have a real debate on the merits, but you’ll have to stop lying on behalf of the insurance companies and Big Pharma…or whoever is paying you to do this disservice.