As Temperature Rises, So Does Obama’s Healthcare Spin

Temperatures on the East Coast are rising…

…but this heat wave is nothing compared to the amount of hot air coming from the White House this week as they desperately look  for any good news on the “train wreck” that is ObamaCare.

Just yesterday, President Obama stood before a national audience and proclaimed his government takeover of healthcare was giving 8.5 million Americans insurance rebates, after 13 million Americans received them last year.

As the Associated Press puts it, “Another year, another round of exaggeration from President Barack Obama and his administration about health insurance rebates.”

‘The health care law requires insurance companies that spend too much on administrative expenses to issue rebates to customers. But those customers are often employers that in turn offer insurance to workers and bear the bulk of the costs. In workplace plans, the rebate goes to the employer, which must use it for the company health plan but does not have to pass all or part of it on to the worker. People who buy their own insurance and qualify for a rebate get it directly.

‘Obama was on solid ground in saying “millions of Americans” got rebate checks last year, but the number was not close to 13 million as he implied.

‘Of the 12.8 million rebates announced last year, health policy experts estimated 3 million would go directly to the insured. The government didn’t know how many.”

 

This led the AP to conclude, Obama simply “made a splashy announcement about rebates that incorporates misleading advertising.”

While he was busy ignoring the facts on insurance rebates, he made sure to point out a story in the New York Times showing that premiums are dropping in that state by 50 percent.

We understand Democrats are desperate for any good news on ObamaCare, because—as we all know—there hasn’t been much. But before our friends on the other side of the aisle get too ahead of themselves, let’s look at the facts:

Avik Roy, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, points out that New York has “the costliest and least functional individual-insurance markets in the nation, because many of the regulations that Obamacare imposes nationwide are already present in New York, on steroids.” Also, he says that policies were not “$1,000 or more” as the article states. Roy found some available for $357.

So in fact, the New York insurance market is so tangled, ObamaCare is actually liberalizing it. Hardly a notable accomplishment.

Also, as McClatchy points out this morning, rates in other states are rising rapidly.

“For example, while Obama pointed to a reduction in premiums in New York state, state officials in Ohio say the average premium proposal for individual coverage next year is up 88 percent from this year’s average price as reported by the Society of Actuaries. In Maryland, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield proposed a 25 percent increase in premiums next year, after first seeking a 50 percent increase.”

 

So in the meantime, we’ll just have to deal with the heat. However, we can do something about ObamaCare. It’s time President Obama and the Senate take up the House’s bipartisan bills to delay the mandates. Then, once delayed, we’ll continue to work for repeal.