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Top 5 Lies About Obamacare

by Nov 13, 2013Articles, Health Freedom0 comments

Here are five of the top lies that have been told about the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., Obamacare. 1) The individual mandate is constitutional. 2) Everyone's premiums will be lower. 3) If you like your health care plan, you can keep it. 3a) Okay, so many…

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Here are five of the top lies that have been told about the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a., Obamacare.

1) The individual mandate is constitutional.

I want you to buy an Obamacare plan... or else!

The usual argument one hears for why this is true is “because the Supreme Court says so”. This is, of course, a non sequitur. The Court’s arguments presented in its ruling are demonstrably incorrect. Even the mainstream media implicitly recognizes the nonsense it spewed, calling the penalty for not buying insurance a “penalty”, because that is obviously what it is, the Court’s assertion to the contrary, upon which their conclusion rests, notwithstanding. The simple fact of the matter is that the Constitution emphatically does not grant the Congress the tyrannical authority to force individuals to participate in the market by purchasing goods or services against their will. Of course, had the founders saw fit to design such an authoritarian government with the Constitution, it wouldn’t have lent it any more legitimacy than it has when the government simply usurps such power in violation of the Constitution. If you’re not afraid to take a trip down the rabbit hole, read my paper, “The Logical Flaws of the Supreme Court’s Ruling on the Affordable Care Act“.

2) Everyone’s premiums will be lower.

President Obama repeatedly told the public that if Obamacare was passed, it would reduce everybody’s premiums. Families would save an average of $2,500 per year, he claimed. Other government officials repeated this lie. Nancy Pelosi, for example, lied that “everybody will have lower rates and better care” under Obamacare. That this is proving false isn’t some unintended consequence, either. The whole point of the individual mandate was to force younger, healthier individuals to pay more in order to subsidize the costs to the sick of health insurance. The media, like the New York Times, are now openly acknowledging this fact. Curious, isn’t it, that they weren’t filling people in on that little detail before the Act became law?

3) If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.

Obama repeatedly told the public this whopper even though he knew that many insurance plans that didn’t offer what the government calls “essential” health benefits would be outlawed under Obamacare. Obviously, the consequence of making it illegal for insurance companies to offer a wider variety of plans than the few standardized options mandated under the law — such as offering high-deductible policies to young, healthy individuals for very low monthly premiums — is that anyone holding such non-compliant plans will lose them.

3a) Okay, so many people can’t keep their plans, but their new plans will be better!

This is nonsense. Whether the new plans people will be forced to buy under Obamacare are “better” than their old ones is a subjective valuation that only the individual purchasing insurance can make for themselves. Many people no doubt will find losing plans they were happy with and being forced to pay a lot more for a plan that offers so-called “essential” benefits that they don’t need (like, say, drug rehabilitation or mental health care) is not at all “better” for them.

4) You can keep your doctor.

Actually, one of the key ways insurance companies are trying to keep premium costs down under Obamacare is by limiting their coverage to smaller networks of hospitals and doctors. So, sure, you can definitely keep your doctor if you are willing to pay out of pocket to go see your doctor who is not part of your insurance provider’s limited network. This, too, is not obviously “better” for many people.

5) Obamacare creates more choice and competition.

Obama repeated this nonsense just last week, when he admitted that it was true that, contrary to his repeated promises, many people would lose their plans. But the new plans are “better”! And people forced to switch will be “benefiting from more choice and competition” under Obamacare! This is downright Orwellian. How is it again that people who are losing their health insurance plans that they like and are being forced to buy another against their will benefiting from more choice? How is it again that forcing insurance providers to offer government-mandated standardized plans increases competition? By definition, Obamacare limits both competition and consumer choice. Of course, if what Obamacare had to offer was really a good thing for consumers, then it wouldn’t be necessary to mandate that people participate in the system it creates and force people to comply with its attempts to centrally plan the market for health insurance.

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