In yesterday’s LA Times, David Lazarus assesses the question of whether President Obama deliberately misled the public about their ability to keep their own current health insurance. The verdict: pretty much “no” — and certainly not with intent to deceive. In talking to the public, he didn’t always repeat the qualifications that had been built into the bill at the time that the legislation was passed, but that’s a far cry from lying.
If you want to see Presidential lying, I have a long list of lies from the Bush Jr. administration lying around here somewhere — starting with the justification for Iraq War. That was a consequential lie — or series of lies, actually. And if you want to see a recent list of lies, I’m sure I can dig up a long list of accusations leveled by Darrell Issa and others — including some in these very electronic pages. (Fast and Furious and Benghazi, anyone?)
Here are some of the highlights from Lazarus’s article:
(1) “You can keep it if it’s up to code.”
This [question of whether Obama lied] wouldn’t even be an issue if Obama had qualified his remarks simply by adding that you’d be able to keep your insurance as long as it meets minimum standards for coverage, which is a big part of what Obamacare is all about.
I’ve tried explaining this with a fish analogy before; this time, let’s try chicken. Let’s say that you enjoy having a delicious chicken sandwich from GaltCo every once in a while. However, upon investigation it turns out that:
- The “chicken” sandwich is actually made from seagulls
- The seagulls are found rotting on the beach, but then are bleached and boiled
- Maggots in the seagulls decaying bodies are not removed prior to processing.
- The seagull sandwiches are made by slave labor
- The seagull sandwiches contain appreciable amounts of both heroin and cocaine.
- About 3% of the people eating a seagull sandwich in a given year get sick and die from it
- About 6% of the people eating a seagull sandwich get sick, don’t die, and then are forced to sign waivers of liability by armed thugs dispatched by GaltCo.
- New regulations will make sale of these “chicken sandwiches” illegal (except as provided below.)
Now, if Obama says that, while he’s reforming the food safety laws, “you can keep your chicken sandwich,” he’s pretty clearly saying that you can keep your “chicken sandwich” if it’s otherwise up to code. Those seagull sandwiches aren’t. Part of the law was designed to keep people from selling seagull sandwiches. So, we’re very sorry if you thought that it was just a regular chicken sandwich made from chicken, not by slave labor, not containing illegal drugs, and not a serious risk to public health — but now you know, and you should understand why you can no longer buy them.
Lazarus quotes another expert in the article to this effect:
Shana Alex Lavarreda, director of health insurance studies at UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research, said Obama “underestimated the fact that there was a market for bad plans.”
In other words, the shapers of the Affordable Care Act assumed that people would jump at the chance to receive better coverage at a better price.
They didn’t factor in the idea that some people, because of either ignorance or stubbornness, would remain loyal to their old plans, regardless of how much they could improve things under Obamacare
I believe that the government should try to serve the people as best it can. But at some point, if you run into an immovable wall of ignorance and stubbornness, one is entitled to stop reminding people that the reforms to regulations were widely reported on at the time that the law was passed.
(2) “You can keep your plan — so long as your insurer wants to keep offering it“
Miriam Laugesen, an assistant professor of health policy at Columbia University, said there are two things many people might not understand.
First, she said, they might not realize how shoddy some older plans are, providing minimal coverage at relatively high prices.
Second, Laugesen said, many people might not realize that subsidies available under Obamacare will ultimately allow people to obtain more comprehensive coverage at a lower cost than they might be paying under their current plans.
“Obama was actually telling the truth,” she said. “The law says you can grandfather in older policies. But that would only be if the plans met the conditions of the law and remained the same.”
In other words: if you’re insurer is offering a plan, and it’s up to code, nothing in the law keeps them from continuing to offer it. If they choose not to offer it, that’s their decision — just as it was before Obamacare was passed. If they decide to jack up the premiums, that’s also their decision — just as it was before Obamacare was passed. So stop blaming Obama for what your insurer is doing.
Lazarus concludes:
So, yes, the president wasn’t as clear as he should have been. You can call him a liar if you want. But I see a clear difference between not offering the full story and making stuff up out of whole cloth.
I mean, it’s not as if he publicly insisted that so-called death panels would decide people’s medical treatment, or that most small businesses would be crippled by the reform law or that the government is taking over the entire healthcare system.
That’s what his critics have been saying.
Those are some serious lies.
I expect that some commenters will have a pithy comeback like “no, Obama lied, period.” They’re not offering the full story — to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Your over the top sandwich example is not what we are dealing with on some of the plans counselor. Certainly on some it may illustrate your point about bad plans, although how over the top your example is certainly makes it seem that you don’t think any of the more borderline plans are acceptable at all.
How about a really expensive and overpriced sandwich that someone bought prior to its expiration date, but then puts it in their refrigerator and it now goes well past its expiration date, but the one who purchased it decides to eat it because they are hungry and need something to eat…should the government then say that you can no longer purchase overpriced sandwiches and eat them past their expiration date even if you are hungry? If you think that it is not the same because there are grandfather clauses for old plans that make no changes (and we mean absolutely no changes at all), then in my example, one could still eat the sandwich that they purchased as long as you do not put extra mustard or pepper on it prior to eating, otherwise it is a no-no.
Now I am hungry.
Agreed.
Classic example of government saying: I know better than you and will choose for you.
So when the government tells people that they can’t text and drive at the same time, you think that’s a mistake?
Or drinking and driving, or shooting guns in the air, or general restrictions against mayhem and murder?
Yeah, but I think my example is a bit more cogent. A new technology comes along that we have no experience with; people, left to their own devices, abuse that technology, willingly, in a way that can harm other people.
What entity can step in and attempt to mitigate that harm?
1) Manufacturers
2) Service Providers
3) (Anyone else)
999) Government, appropriately.
To your point, government has a role in limiting harm to society caused by individual’s poor choices with freedom. To my point, government’s role ought to be definitive, powerful, and limited in both scope and frequency of use when there is consensus on the definition of a poor choice.
In this case, we do not have consensus that even a plurality of folks buying private insurance have made a poor choice that causes harm to society, the government’s role is hardly definitive and its interpretations of what it’s going to allow or not allow change on a weekly basis based upon some bureaucrat’s soup de jour, the mandate to abide by the government’s decision is pitifully weak and encourages disobedience more than it encourages willful conformance . . . what power it does have is undermined by its pitiful execution and last minute roll-out, and the scope is so large and overused that the only thing Americans will do more often in their lives as a requirement of the federal government is to pay taxes.
*Blah*. That was WAY too much typing. Sorry for the political diarrhea. I’m just glad I have health care coverage for me and my family.
Well I think your prioritization of responsible parties bears little resemblance to the way these things typically play out. Manufacturers of cell phones couldn’t care less if people use their devices to text while driving, despite any PR messages to the contrary. And having given you and me the technology, they are powerless to stop us from using it. When have these manufacturers and service providers EVER made a meaningful effort to mitigate the potential harm from texting and driving?
Placing the government at 999 is really just laughable. It’s late, you must be tired.
As for the insurance example, the problem isn’t that people are choosing to buy junk policies…it’s that insurance companies are selling them in the first place! I have no problem with a good faith effort being made by the government to regulate the quality of coverage these companies can offer people. We shall see if that effort is at least PARTIALLY responsible for bending the cost curve down. We’re talking about people’s health here! And when it comes to the cost of healthcare, we really are in this together!
That said, the government, at times, DOES overreach. But dude, your original statement was really quite a piece of Skallywagian oversimplification.
Of course they care. That’s why you see solutions in speech to text in both phones and vehicle infotainment construction. How much of that innovation is due to government intrusion is debatable, but stating manufacturers won’t respond to market demand and/or are powerless to do anything about it is ridiculous. But we digress . . .
Skallywag, are you going to put up with Anon claiming I sound like you? THE HORROR!
Methinks Skallywag would covet the comparison. You, however…I know you don’t. 😉
“.. your original statement was really quite a piece of Skallywagian oversimplification.”
Many times the issues are pretty simple but are spun out of proportion.
Did you just call me “counselor”? Shit just got real! 😉
No, when you eat your expensive and overpriced sandwich (for which you paid too much money) once you buy it is your own business (so long as it’s going into your own mouth.) Do you know of any contrary regulations? I vaguely recall that they may exist for prescription meds.
How hard is it to make no changes on a plan, as the cost of being able to offer it?
The crux of this is whether the existing “borderline” plans can or can’t be replaced with better ones once tax rebates are taken into account. I can’t rule out that it NEVER happens, just as I can’t rule out that some people really DO drive better drunk or stoned (as I’ve heard people claim of themselves), but I do note that most of the claims that one is being ripped off by Obamacare don’t seem to pan out upon closer examination.
Here’s the problem: if your insurance doesn’t pay you properly, then you end up in OUR emergency room, paid for by OUR tax money, for even primary care. Do you think that the government has no legitimate basis to say “if you’re going to eat expired sandwiches, you’d better have a plan that pays for the stomach pump”?
In any event, the benefits of Obamacare’s regulatory framework — do I really need to go over pre-existing conditions and ending annual and lifetime limits and the like again? — FAR outweigh even some unfortunate side effects on relatively few individuals, even if they do turn out to be true. If the expired sandwich eater gets gastritis as a result of the sandwich, she’s going to be glad for the absence of pre-existing condition and recission clauses!
I was using counselor as a term of respect (i.e. disagree with your analogy, but respect the intention that it was given)…hopefully you took it that way.
The thing that did not come through in my counter-analogy, is that the sandwich although expired can still be perfectly fine to eat even though it is well past its expiration date (in my mind: no visible or smell test signs of spoilage)…remember your youth when you would eat stuff that you did not know when you put in the fridge- heck, I still do now. The consumer is making the choice and an educated one at that.
“How hard is it to make no changes on a plan, as the cost of being able to offer it?” I do not understand this question at all, sorry.
Borderline Plans/Rebates…you are assuming that the only folks that are in borderline plans (i.e. ones that are not so over the top bad, of which i believe our definitions will be different) will receive subsidies/tax rebates. This is simply not the case. There are many folks who are in plans that fit their health situation AND they can afford not only the premium but also the cost of the health services (i.e. co-pays, hospital stays, deductibles). I personally would like to determine if I can replace a current policy with a better one, and obviously would when considering all the options and costs.
“Here’s the problem: if…” You again are assuming that those who have these borderline plans are not able to financially make a decision or financially cover their responsibilities. This may be the case for a large portion of the historically insured, but not all. If my insurance doesn’t pay me properly, I will pay the ER costs that my health insurance does not pay (I assume you feel that I would not go to other less costly providers such as Urgent Care clinics, but that is fine…I see the analogy), OUR tax dollars (of which I pay a very healthy % of my income towards) probably helped quite a bit supporting that ER/Hospital. I think that the government has the right to say “if you’re going to eat expired sandwiches, you’d better be prepared to be responsible for the consequences.” That preparation should include health plans that meet that person’s unique situation. For example, there are High Deductible Plans that historically may have worked great for the young and healthy, which now may not meet the “standards”. At the end of the day, don’t eat the sandwich unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences.
I am all for everyone getting the health services that they need. I am also in favor of everyone looking at their own health “plan”…meaning in a global perspective which would include insurance (one that is appropriate for their own situation), liquidity reserves (i.e. cash to pay a high deductible for example), lifestyle (i.e. not eating the sandwich), etc…Essentially, applying a lot of the same financial “personal responsibility” standards that I have written many times about with very mixed reception.
Overall, i am probably not all that displeased with ACA other than seeing our plans get changed here at the office which were working for our folks albeit they were small changes, our premiums going up (direct result is measured in my mind by looking at the difference between early renewal Dec 2013 rates compared to Jan 2014 rates), confusion over what ACA is all about, and overall poor execution on the roll-out. I actually can give the roll-out some “grace” in that if more states had opted to do their own exchanges, then I do feel that it would have been a lot smoother- similiar to CA.
You do not need to go over pre-existing conditions, caps, recission clauses…all of which I think are good things for society (although I could certainly argue against individually but morally, they are “good”). Nor do I think anything that I have said would indicate that I disagree with them…possibly lifetime caps could be put into the “personal responsibility” category somewhat more easily than the others, but we don’t really need to stretch it that far.
I feel like I am just rambling now, and not sure if I answered your questions.
The square wheels on the ObamaCare Train are falling off. “Clinton Urges Obama To Honor His Pledge, – He says law should be changed if necessary to let people keep health coverage”
(OC Register 11/13/2013 News 3). Obama’s fix is to replace the square wheels with triangle shaped wheels.
“The issue facing the administration now is how to ease the impact of people who are losing their plans and don’t qualify for subsidies to cover higher premiums.”
Wow! Such a plan, – previous plan lost with higher Obamacare premiums.
A Republican Strategy: Win a Senate majority in 2014, back any Republican that can win the Presidency in 2016. Starting in 2017 when the Republicans won the trifecta, House, Senate & Presidency, spend the next four years repairing the damage that Obamacare has done to America’s health care system. In the meantime get healthy.
“.. I see a clear difference between not offering the full story and making stuff up out of whole cloth.”
Well no f**king shit there is a difference – but they are both still deceptions and lies.
Are we scoring lies on a sliding scale now? I give BHO an 8.5 on a scale of 10. Whereas, Clinton only receives a 6.4 for “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Let the record show that I did NOT see skally’s comment prior to composing and scheduling the story that is coming out in a little over an hour — in which I score someone else’s lies on a sliding scale.
It will be interesting to see whether skally responds to that one consistently.
An analogy to Clinton’s Lewinsky statement would work only if he had announced at the time that the dalliance was being considered that he was considering the dalliance and if it were widely reported at the time.
BHO lied on a matter of substance, concern and of great importance to the American people – Clinton lied about getting blowjobs from a young (lady?).
That considered, I will revise The Liar in Chief’s score to 9.5
Best documentation about Congress knowing in 2010 that people would lose their healthcare and the party line votes to prevent the tragedy. Democrats didn’t care, – the Republicans were too timid, – and the Main Stream Media was silent. http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/31/obama-officials-in-2010-93-million-americans-will-be-unable-to-keep-their-health-plans-under-obamacare/
The Forbes article covers 2010 & 2009 legislation that would have allowed people to keep their plans; but the bills were voted down on party line votes. Now Democrats are claiming that they didn’t know.
When rolling out a large and complex IT project the wisest approach is to install it in one location and try and operate it in the real world before rolling it out to all planned locations. This is a real test of any such system and is the way to make sure it is working band th de-bug it before dumping it on everyone. Too bad the President’s team did not understand this basic approach to IT roll-out. Another reason to question competence. .