This is the third part of my dissection of my conservative relatives’ arguments against The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. Part One can be found HERE. Part Two can be found HERE.
Here is the first article one of my relatives offered to support their position:
Here is the link to the actual text of the ACA:
From now on, any counter-arguments you make about the law must contain references to the law. No excuses, because, hey, I’ve given you the link to the act.
So here are the second group of five reasons out of the fifteen outlined by Michael Snyder for End Of The American Dream:
#11 Obamacare is going to result in a much bigger federal government. In order to fully implement all of the provisions of Obamacare, hordes of new government bureaucrats will be required.
We’ll grant this one, but so what? The Homeland Security Act vastly expanded the size of the federal government. And I guess Mr. Snyder didn’t notice that we still have millions of Americans looking for work.
I find #11 to be essentially correct; the ACA brings the added bonus of creating new jobs for Americans.
#12 Thanks to Obamacare, you are going to have to wait much longer to see a doctor. Just look at what happened once Romneycare was implemented in Massachusetts….
In fact, we have already seen the start of this process in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney’s health care reforms were nearly identical to President Obama’s. Romney’s reforms increased the demand for health care but did nothing to expand the supply of physicians. In fact, by cracking down on insurance premiums, Massachusetts pushed insurers to reduce their payments to providers, making it less worthwhile for doctors to expand their practices. As a result, the average wait to get an appointment with a doctor grew from 33 days to over 55 days.
Once again, Mr. Snyder’s citation is a dead end: the link to a New York Post article has expired. But FactCheck.org has looked into this very topic:
Those who claim the law caused longer waiting times frequently cite annual surveys by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Its 2010 survey did find that the average wait time for internal medicine had gone up by six days since 2005 — to 53 days. But results were mixed — the average wait for family medicine went down by 15 days from the year before to 29 days. Wait times for other specialties were down too, since 2005, including those for cardiology, gastroenterology and orthopedic surgery.
Regardless of waiting times, however, access to care and use of care overall have actually gone up, according to the Urban Institute’s Sharon K. Long, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health.
Of course, when you combine the ongoing doctor shortage with the increase in the number of patients trying to see them, it is likely that wait times will increase. But the solution is to lobby Congress to help medical students settle their student loan debt so more of them will move into medical practice as doctors, instead of opting for more immediately lucrative medical technician positions.
I find that Reason #12 airs a valid concern, but does not support repeal of the ACA.
#13 Obamacare contains all kinds of insidious little provisions that most people don’t even know about. The following is one example from the Alliance Defense Fund….
“Did you know that with ObamaCare you will have to pay for life-saving drugs, but life-ending drugs are free. One hundred percent free. If this plan were really about health care wouldn’t it be the other way around?”
It sounds like they’re saying that you can kill yourself for free, but you have to pay to live. It’s almost the return of the Death Panels. I can’t find anything in the ACA about euthanasia benefits.
So what are these “life-ending drugs” they speak of? According to Alliance Defense Fund literature:
ObamaCare and its Mandates Fact SheetHHS Mandate
- Provides “free coverage for early-abortion pills, contraceptives, sterilizations, and “education and counseling” about choosing and using those things (Women’s Preventive Services Guidelines and HHS Mandates Pg. 2)
- While these items are “free”, nearly all other medications (heart pills, insulin, etc.) still cost the same.
They are referring to mifepristone, or RU-486. Labelling it a “life ending drug” requires no small amount of hubris. And in fact, insurance plans are not required to cover drugs to induce abortions.
I find that reason #13 is false, at least given that the single example of “insidious little provisions” turns out to be false.
#14 As if the U.S. government was not facing enough of a crisis with entitlement spending, it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls. You and I will be paying for all of this.
Unfortunately, Mr. Snyder’s source is an article behind the paywall of Investor’s Business Daily. However, the Congressional Budget Office is free. And the source of the information in the first place. And it reports:
According to the current estimates, from 2016 on, between 20 million and 23 million people will receive coverage through the new insurance exchanges, and 16 million to 17 million additional people will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as a result of ACA.
And do you know who has been paying for these 16 million people prior to the ACA? You and I. Only we paid more because people only went to the hospital when they had a health crisis, resulting in higher costs. And because they weren’t in any sort of plan, the bills were a lot higher than if they’d been enrolled in Medicaid to begin with.
But Medicaid is administered by the states, and the states can opt out of expanding Medicaid coverage. In those states that choose not to expand, the rest of us will cover the costs of indigent care through higher premiums instead of through tax dollars. Either way, we pay. And that’s just the facts.
So while #14 is true, it is also not a reason to repeal Obamacare.
#15 The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obamacare will add more than a trillion dollars to government spending over the next decade. Considering the fact that the U.S. government is already drowning in debt, how in the world can we afford this?
I must preface this with the fact that there is a difference between spending and debt. Not all spending contributes to the deficit. Deficits occur when spending is mandated without a revenue stream in place to fund the spending, or the mandated revenue stream brings in fewer funds than are disbursed. But if you mandate spending, and install an adequate revenue stream, you do not create a deficit.
Once again, Mr. Snyder cites himself to support this claim. In his article, he cites a story in USA Today talks about the deficit, but it says nothing about the ACA’s effects on the budget deficit.
But Politifact has examined claims from US Representative Morgan Griffith (R-Va) that the ACA will add $6.2 trillion to long-term deficits. His claims are based on a January 2013 GAO study. That study analyzed two scenarios: one in which the ACA remained completely intact, and the other in which the coverage requirements were kept, but all the cost containment measures were phased out.
The GAO reports that if the ACA moves forward, and that all of its cost containment measures remain in place, the act will reduce the primary deficit by 1.5 percent over 75 years. Yes, that is a very small number, but it’s still a reduction.
In the other scenario, the ACA is stripped of its cost containment measures, it would increase the primary deficit by 0.7 percent over 75 years.
Politifact also examined Grover Norquist’s claim that eliminated the ACA would shave $35 Billion from the national deficit and found that that was true. However, they also examined Carol Shea Porter’s claim that repealing the ACA would increase the budget deficit and found that yes, it would, by around $1,280 billion. How can that be? Well, the ACA mandates a lot of fee reductions and creates several new revenue sources. Eliminate the act, you lose both the savings and the extra funds it generates.
Mr. Snyder also does not address the fact that the deficit is currently falling at the fastest rate in 60 years, at least according to research done by Politifact.
I must concluded that #`15 does not provide a reason to repeal or impede the ACA.
Reasons 1-5 * Reasons 6-10 * Reasons 11-15
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