Posted on 01/17/2017 9:12:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Liberals are notorious for caring about “groups” of people, but when it gets down to individual persons, not so much. You’re about to see this play out in spades as Democrats cry crocodile tears over the coming repeal of Obamacare.
You hear it over and over again: “This will be catastrophic for the 20 million people who were previously uninsured but now have coverage! You can’t take away their health care!”
First of all, no one is talking about doing that. Any repeal legislation will have a transition period for those who got coverage through Obamacare to move to new plans. And second, they will have more choices and better options. Win. Win.
But liberals would rather focus on quantity, how many millions we’ve given something to, versus quality, what does that “gift” mean for individual people.
The Obama administration claims 20 million more Americans today have health care due to Obamacare. The reality is that when you look at the actual net gains over the past two years since the program was fully implemented, the number is 14 million, and of that, 11.8 million (84 percent) were people given the “gift” of Medicaid.
And new research shows that even fewer people will be left without insurance after the repeal of Obamacare. Numbers are still being crunched, but between statistics released by the Congressional Budget Office and one of the infamous architects of Obamacare, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jonathan Gruber, it’s estimated that anywhere from 2 to 7 million people now on Medicaid would have qualified for the program even without Obamacare.
That further discredits the administration’s claim of 20 million more Americans having health insurance because of Obamacare.
Multiple studies have also shown that even those who are uninsured often have better outcomes than those with Medicaid. A University of Virginia study found that for eight different surgical procedures, Medicaid patients were more likely to die than privately insured or uninsured patients. They were also more likely to suffer complications.
And it is important to note that this study focused on procedures done from 2003-2007, prior to the geniuses in Washington deciding it was a good idea to put even more people on the already overburdened Medicaid system.
Additionally, despite what proponents of the law promised, there is little evidence to show that the use of emergency rooms, which have a higher level of medical errors, has decreased due to Obamacare.
Then there is this reality: While Obamacare has handed out millions of new Medicaid cards, that does not mean the recipients now have quality health care. In fact, it doesn’t ensure they have health care at all. That’s because increasing numbers of doctors aren’t accepting Medicaid.
As a Louisiana woman told The New York Times, “My Medicaid card is useless for me right now. It’s a useless piece of plastic. I can’t find an orthopedic surgeon or a pain management doctor who will accept Medicaid.”
Keep that in mind every time liberal Democratic senators pull out the Kleenex boxes bemoaning the fact Republicans are the ones trying to take people’s health care away.
Speaking of which, a much underreported fact of Obamacare is how many truly needy and disabled Americans are NOT getting the services they need because of the expansion of Medicaid for able-bodied adults (aka healthy) of prime working age, 19-54.
So while the left talks about all the new people Obamacare is helping, it neglects to mention that over half a million disabled people, from those with developmental disabilities to traumatic brain injuries, are on waiting lists for care.
And many of them are on waiting lists because Obamacare gives states more money to enroll able-bodied adults than it does to take care of disabled children and adults who qualified for Medicaid prior to Obamacare.
If you think that doesn’t have a real-world perverse impact, note this. Since Arkansas expanded its Medicaid program under Obamacare, it’s rolls have grown by 25 percent. During that same time, 79 people on the Medicaid waiting list who suffered from developmental disabilities have died. I would encourage you to read my former Heritage Foundation colleague Chris Jacob’s full piece on this.
Finally, it’s not just those enrolled in Medicaid that are finding fewer health care provider options. For people who now have health plans through the Obamacare exchanges, new Heritage Foundation research shows that this year, in 70 percent of counties across the country, those consumers will have only one or two insurers to choose from.
Add to that the millions of people who lost the doctors and health plans they liked and are now paying higher premiums for less coverage, and you can see that quality health care and anything resembling “choice” has quickly disappeared for an increasing number of Americans due to Obamacare.
So the next time a defender of Obamacare tries to take the moral high ground about the millions of people the law has helped, ask them to define what “help” looks like.
Insured by the taxpayers maybe.
Trump said this weekend that everyone will have insurance, and it will be far cheaper than now, and deductibles will be much lower.
That will be AWESOME! Now get to work congress, you’ve got your marching orders.
They include all of the Medicaid recipients that were discovered when people were mandated by Obamacare to have health ins.
Two points:
1. They didn't need to nuke the healthcare system with Ocare to find these people who were eligible for Medicaid.
2. If Obamacare was eliminated tomorrow, these people would still be covered.... by Medicaid.
I'd like to see a stat of how many of those 20 million paid the penalty vs buying the insurance — penalty = $1200 vs an insurance premium of $7,000. The decision is pretty simple for most.
http://www.businessinsider.com/160-million-americans-in-severe-financial-distress-2017-1
We’re going broke.
Well they did vastly increase the number of people who qualified for medicaid, at least in the states that accepted the deal
Lies, or facts, mean nothing to liberals.
And wasn’t it unfunded by the Feds? Or did the Feds promise to cover the additional costs incurred by the States?
But but but, what about the 95 million unemployed? Which is worse? Its fine and dandy many are now covered but I bet if they (Democrats) had worked on getting 95 million (their number) employed all would be much better. Sick of hearing their millions number. That will make you sick!
How many doesn’t matter. If anyone thinks those people are entitled to health insurance, they should contribute to pay for it themselves, or take up a collection on crowd funding. Some people are very generous with other people’s money.
Yep.
An Insurance card is NOT “healthcare”.
That was my tagline in 2009/2010.
Yep.. let’s spend 9.7 Trillion dollars for a “vehicle to repeal” ocare... then how many more trillions replacing it? Since when did any insurance become a guaranteed right to Conservatives? What absolute insanity.. and the costs... wow! Since we are working something out on the dreamers, as dt said (Amnesty), they’re in too. The stupid pubbies are about to spend what.. 30 Trillion.. 40? Suddenly conservatives are all in for big big spending.
Would cost a lot less to simply.. not enforce the law. Since dt is handing out tax dollars to carrier, sprint.. ad nauseum.. before assuming office, why not just go full socialism?
What is the difference between spending forty trillion on legislation to “insure everybody” and socialism? Zero.. 30 Trillion gone.
Paying a bunch of CEOs for jobs created or saved? It’s Obamas third term.. cause. It sure as heck isn’t Conservatism.
I’ve listened to & read A LOT about how many people who had no healthcare insurance at all actually got coverage under Obamacare. The number is approximately 12 to 13 million. When the lying Dems talk about bigger numbers, they conveniently double count and include people who had health insurance but it got taken away from them because of Obamacare............so they had to sign up for new health insurance under Obamacare.
I remember when the Liar in Chief was ramming Obamacare through, he said 47 million uninsured people would get coverage. Total bald-faced lie. Cankles used the number 20 million.
So in a country of 330 million plus people, Obamacare may have provided coverage for 13 million—that’s 3.9% of the population. Well that was a brilliant idea—break the system, destroy the system, all for 3.9% of the population and screw the other 96%.
I am so glad Obamacare is going to be tossed out with the trash where it belongs.
Even more ammunition for repeal and don’t replace.
Trump hasn't handed any tax dollars out to anyone yet in his capacity as President-Elect, so I think you may be a bit premature in your assessment. Case in point, the Carrier company. No federal funds were used to pressure them. The state of Indiana did offer about 6-7 million in tax deductions (which is NOT the same as handing out tax dollars), but the deal promises significantly more revenue back to the state!
I would rather not see sweetheart deals; i.e., crony capitalism all over the place, but rather a low-tax and low-regulatory environment that encourages the free market.
For several years, Obamacare has been claiming it now covers 20 million previously uninsured.
Pre-Obamacare, there were supposedly 40 million uninsured. So, why did only 20 million get coverage, since, for those 40 million uninsured, it would probably be subsidizes, thus free?
The Obamacare numbers are about as manipulated as the employment and economic numbers.
Many of the enrollees were Medicaid enrollees who are welfare system riders who o not pay in.
The total is down to about 10 million as ObamaCare costs become unaffordable and near the entire yearly take home pay of many potential recipients.
ObamCare is a fraud and failure
Stop attacking Trump!
Trump says all Americans WILL be covered under the new cheaper plan with extremely low deductibles and that will be much cheaper for the government. Now Congress just has to figure out how to do that
Why are you attacking Trump? You know that’s not safe, right?
Three card Monte loses all his money.
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