Over the past four years, the right has made a number of predictions about the ACA. Though most were transparently implausible when first uttered, we now have the data to evaluate them a little more closely. So here's my pick for the top ten doomsday predictions from the right that turned out to be dead wrong. In no particular order: 1. Rightwing prediction: The CBO is underestimating the costs of the coverage expansion. Covering people will be more expensive than we were told it would be. Reality: The CBO overestimated the costs of the coverage expansion. Covering people has been less expensive than we were told it would. [HR][/HR] 2. Rightwing prediction: Exchange premiums could be seeing triple digit increases later this year! And employer premiums will soar! Reality: The average premium increase in the exchanges going into 2015 is somewhere between 2.6 and 5.9%, well below pre-ACA trends. Many rating areas are seeing outright decreases. Meanwhile, premium growth in employer-based plans hit a two decade low this year. [HR][/HR] 3. Rightwing prediction: Health care costs will soar! Reality: Health care cost growth has reached and stayed at historic lows. Projections of future spending on health economy-wide are now lower than they were before the ACA passed. Total federal health spending obligations are now lower than they were before the ACA started subsidizing new coverage. [HR][/HR] 4. Rightwing prediction: The Medicare savings in the law can't be achieved, it's just a trick. Reality: Medicare spending growth has slowed even more than required by the ACA, making the savings far larger than estimated; per capita Medicare cost growth is now falling. [HR][/HR] 5. Rightwing prediction: The ACA will explode the deficit! Reality: The deficit has shrunk below the average for the last four decades. [HR][/HR] 6. Rightwing prediction: The website will never work! No one is paying premiums! Reality: The website works. The net attrition rate has been less than 9%. [HR][/HR] 7. Rightwing prediction: Employers will drop coverage. Reality: They didn't and they aren't. [HR][/HR] 8. Rightwing prediction: There will be no net decrease in the uninsured! The uninsurance rate may even be going up! Reality: The ranks of the uninsured fell by about 10 million in the first year alone. In other words, about a quarter of the formerly uninsured gained coverage. [HR][/HR] 9. Rightwing prediction: The ACA will result in less choice and competition. Reality: Dozens and dozens of new sellers are entering the exchanges next year and hundreds and hundreds of new plan offerings will be available. Many state markets have new competitors that didn't even exist before the ACA. [HR][/HR] 10. Rightwing prediction: Obamacare will destroy the quality of care! Reality: Hospitals are getting safer under Obamacare. Health care providers are improving on quality metric after quality metric. Quality scores for Medicare Advantage plans have improved significantly. I'm sure there are more, these are just the biggest ones.
Goldberg's response: "http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/369238/so-what-was-point-obamacare-again-jonah-goldberg" " he also blew up the entire health-insurance industry in response, insisting that it was absolutely necessary not only to fix the bad economy (which was always a stretch) but to deal with the ongoing crisis of the uninsured. It turns out it did neither. It created more uninsured people than it gave insurance to. And it promises to create even more."
That's not a response, that's the kind of prediction I'm talking about. A bold, sweeping pronouncement issued in January, based on enrollment data through December 28, that turned out to be laughably wrong by the time open enrollment ultimately ended in April.
It doesn't matter how many studies/proof/facts/evidence you provide, the true patriots will just keep repeating the same debunked, disproven lines. At this point, even though the game is over, they've have invested too much in what they just know MUST be trueto ever admit they were wrong. It's embarrassing - the disregard for proven facts.
Paid OFA shill doing the bidding of the Boy King. If you like your Ebola, you can keep your Ebola with uncontrolled borders.
How about the fact that tons of large employers (including mine) have cut employees down to 30hrs/WK from the 40hrs/WK and more they previously were getting?
Thus far there's not much evidence of a systemic issue, just scattered anecdotes. See the CBO's estimates of the ACA's labor market effects from earlier this year: If "part-time employment could be declining even faster than it already is" is the main gripe left, the anti-ACA bandwagon is running out of steam pretty quickly.
My employer, like millions of others, were forced to reduce employees hours to below 30, or otherwise be required to insure me. So I get screwed. Thanks Obama! Thanks collectivist socialism! Thanks Satan! I love getting 40 hours of wages per month STOLEN from me!
Obama: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." June 15 2009 Reality: ... oops.
A common misconception is that premiums are going down. They are not going down, their rate of inflation is slowing.. however, this has been the trend since 2003, overall premium inflation is slowing, but individual plan premiums have gone up 49% just this year As for the expense? well we pay more than what is necessary, as we are the only nation in the world who uses a mandate plan without taking the profit out of the standard/mandated coverage. In nations like Switzerland and Netherlands, the insurance companies by law cannot profit off of the mandated plans, only the supplemental plans. This is why the insurance industry invested hundreds of millions advocating for the ACA according to economist Gerald Friedman, a single payer plan (like what Canada uses) would save the US over 500 BILLION dollars a year http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2012/0312friedman.pdf We could save a lot of money and provide coverage to a larger percentage of our citizens if we removed the profit from our mandated plan, or replaced it entirely with a single payer plan. The only reason why we don't is so the insurance companies themselves can benefit from our national healthcare plan
