AP: Obama Misleads Voters about ObamaCare’s Effects on Premiums
Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print…
The [Congressional Budget Office] concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation…
“People are likely to not buy the same low-value policies they are buying now,” said health economist Len Nichols of George Mason University. “If they did buy the same value plans … the premium would be lower than it is now. This makes the White House statement true. But is it possibly misleading for some people? Sure.”
Nichols’ comments are also misleading — which makes the president’s statement not just misleading but untrue.
Under ObamaCare, people would not have the option to buy the same low-cost plans they do today. That’s the whole problem: under an individual mandate, everybody must purchase the minimum level of coverage specified by the government. That minimum benefits package would be more expensive than the coverage chosen by most people in the individual market. Their premiums would rise because ObamaCare would take away their right to choose a more economical policy.
Note also that the CBO predicts premiums would rise by an average of 10-13 percent in the individual market. Consumers who currently purchase the most economic policies would see larger premium increases.
Finally, the Obama plan would also force millions of uninsured Americans to purchase health insurance at premiums higher than current-law premium levels, which they have already rejected as being too high. Their premium expenditures would rise from $0 to thousands of dollars. Yet the CBO counts that implicit tax as reducing average premiums, because those consumers are generally healthier-than-average. Only in Washington is a tax counted as a savings.
Obama’s Other Massachusetts Problem
Even if Democrat Martha Coakley wins 50 percent of the vote in the race to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (ahem) term, there are other numbers emanating from Massachusetts that present a problem for President Obama’s health plan.
On Wednesday, the Cato Institute will release “The Massachusetts Health Plan: Much Pain, Little Gain,” authored by Cato adjunct scholar Aaron Yelowitz and yours truly. Our study evaluates Massachusetts’ 2006 health law, which bears a “remarkable resemblance” to the president’s plan. We use the same methodology as previous work by the Urban Institute, but ours is the first study to evaluate the effects of the Massachusetts law using Current Population Survey data for 2008 (i.e., from the 2009 March supplement). Since I’m sure that supporters of the Massachusetts law and the Obama plan will dismiss anything from Cato as ideologically motivated hackery: Yelowitz’s empirical work is frequently cited by the Congressional Budget Office, and includes one article co-authored with MIT health economist (and Obama administration consultant) Jonathan Gruber, under whom Yelowitz studied.
Among our findings:
- Official estimates overstate the coverage gains under the Massachusetts law by roughly 50 percent.
- The actual coverage gains may be lower still, because uninsured Massachusetts residents appear to be concealing their lack of insurance rather than admit to breaking the law.
- Public programs crowded out private insurance among low-income children and adults.
- Self-reported health improved for some, but fell for others.
- Young adults appear to be avoiding Massachusetts as a result of the law.
- Leading estimates understate the cost of the Massachusetts law by at least one third.
When Obama campaigns for Martha Coakley, he is really campaigning for his health plan, which means he is really campaigning for the Massachusetts health plan.
He and Coakley should explain why they’re pursuing a health plan that’s not only increasingly unpopular, but also appears to have a rather high cost-benefit ratio.
(Cross-posted at Politico‘s Health Care Arena.)
Why the Democrats’ Health Care Overhaul May Die
The problem that Democrats have faced from Day One is finally coming to a head.
The Left and the health care industry both want universal health insurance coverage. The industry, because universal coverage means massive new government subsidies. The Left, because that’s their religion.
But universal coverage is so expensive that Congress can’t get there without taxing Democrats.
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is the biggest opponent of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) tax on expensive health plans because that tax would hit West Virginia coal miners.
- Unions vigorously oppose that tax because it would hit their members.
- Moderate Democrats in the House oppose Rep. Charlie Rangel’s (D-NY) supposed “millionaires surtax” because they know it would hit small businesses in their districts.
And on and on…
But if congressional leaders pare back those taxes, they lose the support of the health care industry, which wants its subsidies.
- That’s why the health insurance lobby funded this PriceWaterhouseCoopers study saying that premiums would rise under the Baucus bill: the $500 billion bailout they would receive isn’t enough. They also want – they demand – steep taxes on Americans who don’t buy their products.
- The drug companies, the hospitals, and the physician groups are likewise demanding big subsidies, and will run ads to kill the whole effort if those subsidies aren’t big enough.
As always, health economist Uwe Reinhardt put it colorfully:
It’s no different from Iraq with all the different tribes…‘How does it affect the money flow to my interest group?’ They are all sitting in the woods with their machine guns, waiting to shoot.
Once the shooting starts, industry opposition will sway even Democratic members, because there are physicians and hospitals and employers and insurance-industry employees in every state and congressional district.
Can President Obama and the congressional leadership satisfy both groups? My guess is, probably not, and this misguided effort at “reform” will therefore die. Again.
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