Families USA: There They Go Again
Basically they add up benefits people will receive under ObamaCare and ignore the costs. For Romney, they count the costs and ignore the benefits. This is a study? Here is Avik Roy:
The report details on a state-by-state basis the people who would receive subsidies under ObamaCare, but it does not detail the distribution of the $1.2 trillion in tax increases and $716 billion of Medicare cuts on a state-by-state basis. Perhaps Families USA believes that ObamaCare was paid for by magic unicorns in the sky…
The report makes numerous dishonest claims about ObamaCare’s Medicare cuts, such as that they “extend the life” of the program (which they only do if they aren’t double-counted toward ObamaCare’s deficit-neutrality); and that the law expands Medicare’s benefits, when in fact it cuts benefits to Medicare Advantage and drives hospitals into bankruptcy, reducing access to care.
Nearly half of the people ObamaCare is supposed to cover will be enrolled in the Medicaid program. Past research by Obama health advisors, Jon Gruber and David Cutler, have found that half to three-quarters of newly enrolled, Medicaid enrollees were previously insured with private coverage – often this is because employers dropped the employee health plan knowing Medicaid would pick up the slack. Studies have found Medicaid coverage is inferior to private coverage.
In addition, some of the low-income families that may benefit from tax credits may also find themselves without a job. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also fines employers above a certain size who do not offer health coverage. Economists know that the cost of employee health plans comes out of workers’ pay. Workers who earn too little to offset the cost of mandated coverage will likely be priced out of a job.
Finally, about half of the cost of the ACA is taken from Medicare and is used towards subsidies for health insurance. In this regard, the assistance young families receive to purchase health coverage are taken from the benefits they could receive later in life for Medicare.
So we’ve got representatives from both sides lying to us and fact-checkers from the opposing sides rebuking and correcting them?
It’s the political circle of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwmYs-lQeD4
Sounds blatantly partisan.
What to do.. What to do…I wish for once there would be some honesty in politics!
politics as usual!
Egregious problems are present in the Family USA study, and I wish they had been corrected. Perhaps another group can build on the actual facts in the report.
But in his rebuttal Avik Roy has demonstrated the incentive for the Romney campaign to keep its healthcare plan vague. If you can’t pin it, you can’t hit it.
“Families USA report inaccurately assumes…This is not true: Romney’s plan is agnostic on whether or not to use credits or deductions.”
“…the report claims that its invented version of the Romney plan…”
Can you really blame him for keeping things vague? The Dem’s are only on offense this election, given the trackrecord I can see why, so I’d keep my tax/healthcare plans vague too.
Shady+conflicting+contradicting+confusing+inconsistent=American politics