from TruthRevolt.org
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il) was a guest on CBS’s Face The Nation Sunday and tried to put the best face on what has been a problematic Obamacare launch. At one point, he bragged about the number of people who gained healthcare for the first time because of the President’s signature legislation.
“Bob, let’s look at the bottom line. The bottom line is this: 10 million Americans have health insurance today who would not have had it without the Affordable Care Act. Ten million.”
According to Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s fact checker, that ten million number is false. He gave it Four Pinocchios, a rating he reserves for the biggest falsehoods.
Durbin appears to be combining two figures released by the administration: more 3 million signing up for insurance through the federal HealthCare.gov and state exchanges and 6.3 million deemed eligible for Medicaid. Both figures are generally October through December, and so obviously have increased since then.
But there are two big problems with both numbers:
a) The troubled federal exchange counts people as enrolled if an individual has selected a plan, but it does not know if a person enrolled and paid a premium because that part of the system has yet to be built.
b) The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility, but no one really knows how many of the 6.3 million are in this expansion pool — or whether they are simply renewing or would have qualified for Medicaid before the new law. Indeed, the number also includes people joining Medicaid in states that chose not accept the expansion.
According to Kessler, the Senator’s errors don’t end there. Durbin is making the assumption that everyone who signed up for Obamacare or the new Medicaid were getting health insurance for the first time. Kessler calls that ridiculous and points to three studies demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of people who have singed up were shifting from a previous plan.
He concludes by saying that, given the fuzzy nature of the numbers and the wide publicity devoted to the recent surveys, Durbin has little excuse for going on national television and claiming that every one of these people had been previously uninsured.
When you’re right, you’re right.
“a) The troubled federal exchange counts people as enrolled if an individual has selected a plan, but it does not know if a person enrolled and paid a premium because that part of the system has yet to be built.”
Wait, really? That…sucks.
Ah yes Chris, that does in deed suck. The more you know the more likely you are to vote for somebody other than a democrat.
Durbin, Obama and the rest of the Democrats will continue to tell lies because they know the MSM will broadcast it to millions and that the truth will be heard by far less. Cheap way to buy votes.
The host of Face the Nation should have corrected or challenged him, but we know that will never happen on the alphabet channels.
Durbin is a Democrat so by default he is a superior liar.
Krauthammer gets it. We live in Obama’s Banana Republic where the Big O he rules by fiat.
http://therightscoop.com/krauthammer-on-obamacare-employer-mandate-delay-this-is-stuff-you-do-in-a-banana-republic/
Speaking of “health care” remember this Planned Parenthood ghoul lobbying in favor of post birth abortion? Is there anything about Progressives that does not surprise you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyBvzKjje-g
Senator Durbin is displaying that being a congenital, serial liar is a requirement for Taxocrat party elected officials!
Gonna have to buy Pinocchios by the truckload . . . . .
Let’s not pretend that lying about Obamacare is somehow exclusive to Democrats. The WaPo Fact Checker has demolished just as many Republican claims about the law as Democrat claims. That’s one reason I like Kessler; he’s fair. Durbin deserved to be called out on this one, just as Obama deserved to be called out on his “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” lie (which I’m embarrassed to say I initially defended until it became obvious it wasn’t true).
Last week the airways were filled with Republicans falsely claiming that the CBO said 2 million Americans would “lose their jobs” due to Obamacare. This was a lie; what the report said was that 2 million Americans, mainly retirees or married people who decided they didn’t need a second income, might voluntarily leave their jobs or cut back their hours due to increased healthcare access. This was a lie, and many of the people who told the lie went unchallenged by reporters as well. That’s not because the media is biased, it’s because journalists have forgotten how to ask tough questions and challenge their guests.
To re-iterate: Democrats will lie about Obamacare to make it look better. Republicans will lie about Obamacare to make it look worse. That’s why it’s important to get your news from objective sources. Don’t trust the spin from either side whenever a CBO report comes out; just read the report. Spend more time on fact-checking websites like Kessler’s. Get the truth.
CBO didn’t put it in terms of jobs but of hours according to Reuters:
Republicans have been asserting that policies that discourage work or that reward people for not working are counterproductive.
Democrats are attempting to spin the downside affects of the law.
Feminists, that for decades have poked fun at women who don’t work, have fought for the right for women to work, have made fun of family values and moms that stay home and bake cookies, are now celebrating the laws incentives to bring moms home so they can prepare family dinners:
Attitudes, first they flaunt them then they deny having them!
The truth is the CBO said 2.5 million FTE (Full Time Equivalent) positions would be cut. It did not say Americans or jobs would be cut. The figure comes from a cumulative count of reduced work hours from full-time to part-time positions.
From Reuters:
Obamacare to cut work hours by equivalent of 2 million jobs: CBO
“(Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s healthcare law will reduce American workforce participation by the equivalent of 2 million full-time jobs in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday, prompting Republicans to paint the law as bad medicine for the U.S. economy.
In its latest U.S. fiscal outlook, the nonpartisan CBO said the health law would lead some workers, particularly those with lower incomes, to limit their hours to avoid losing federal subsidies that Obamacare provides to help pay for health insurance and other healthcare costs.
The biggest impact would begin in 2017, CBO said, because major provisions of the law will be well under way by then. The CBO said there would be smaller declines in work hours that would occur before then.
Work hours would be reduced by the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, said the agency, which earlier predicted 800,000 fewer fulltime jobs by 2021. The bottom line would be a slower rate of growth for employment and compensation in the coming decade, according to the report.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/us-usa-fiscal-obamacare-idUSBREA131B120140204
Re: “That’s why it’s important to get your news from objective sources.”
Yes. Objective sources like The Daily Kos, Media Matters, The Nation, Mother Jones, Pacifica News, NPR, and MSLSD to name a few.
Ooops…grabbed the wrong quote. That one worked okay but it wan’t the cookie quote> Here she is:
She was running for president even then.