Affordable Healthcare in America — Fighting Fiction and Facing Facts
Healthcare insurers are at it again, only this time they’re blaming their rate increases on the Affordable Care Act passed earlier this year. Late last week, Aetna Inc., certain BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers asked for rate increases from 1% to 9%, allegedly to cover costs stemming from the new law.
Republicans were quick to jump on the news and leverage it for political gain by posting the news on the Republican Senate’s website. But this is nothing new. The Republicans have railed against the legislation since day-one, most often with gross distortions, like Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels.”
Most recently, during his August 24 speech at the City Club of Cleveland, House Minority Leader, John Boehner attacked the law, illegitimately labeling it “a government takeover of healthcare.” Of course it’s actually nothing of the sort, as it continues to rely upon the existing system of private insurers and providers, but Boehner would never let the truth get in the way of a good talking point.
Not to miss an opportunity to ding the Democrats, Rand Paul released a new campaign ad attacking what he calls, “the Obama-Pelosi healthcare scheme,” claiming that it “puts Washington bureaucrats in charge, destroying the doctor-patient relationship.” And according to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, “People are finding out what's in [the law], they don't like it, and I think it's going to play a big factor in this election.” Such serious assertions make a person wonder what changes within the new law could possibly be responsible.
The issues cited by the insurers looking for rate hikes were: allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, eliminating co-payments for preventive care, barring insurers from denying coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, and changes to annual and lifetime coverage caps. Just how these regulations will “destroy doctor-patient relationships” or why Grassley’s “people” would raise an objection to them is hard to fathom. But fact-free Republican spin is a constant in 21st Century America, so Democrats are left with a vigilant effort to combat fiction with actual facts.
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