The numbers are nearly all in now. What they show about what really happened during the eight years that Barack Obama was president is sometimes different from what politicians claimed.
Obama’s Final Numbers
Issues: health insurance
The Preexisting Conditions Debate, Again
Republicans and Democrats are making competing claims on whether the latest GOP effort to repeal the ACA continues to protect those with preexisting medical conditions. Under the Graham-Cassidy bill, insurers couldn’t refuse to sell policies, but they could price plans based on health status in states that allowed it.
Subsidies, Not Bailouts
President Donald Trump said “bailouts for insurance companies” would “end very soon” if Congress didn’t pass a new health care bill. Sen. Susan Collins said the payments aren’t a bailout, “but rather help people who are very low-income afford their out-of-pocket costs.” Trump distorts the facts.
Selling Insurance Across State Lines
President Donald Trump said that by allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines, “your premiums will be down 60 and 70 percent.” We couldn’t find any study supporting such a decrease, and experts we consulted disputed the idea that overall average premiums would decline significantly.
Senate Bill: Do Premiums Go Up or Down?
The GOP’s Better Care Reconciliation Act would affect premiums on the individual market in different ways, depending on individual circumstances.
Pence Misleads on Premiums
Vice President Mike Pence went too far in claiming that a new report showed that “the average premium across this country has actually doubled under Obamacare.”
The 24 Million Talking Point
Democrats say the House Republican health care bill would throw 24 million people off their health insurance. But the Congressional Budget Office said that figure includes some who would choose not to have insurance and some who would have had coverage in the future under current law.
CBO’s Obamacare Predictions: How Accurate?
So, was the Congressional Budget Office really “way, way off … in every aspect” of how it predicted that Obamacare would work, as the White House claims? No, it wasn’t.
The Facts on the GOP Health Care Bills
House and Senate Republicans have released legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act. How do the GOP plans differ from the ACA? We look at the major provisions.
Trump on the ACA and the Uninsured
President Donald Trump wrongly claimed that “nobody ever deducts all the people that have already lost their health insurance” from estimates on how many have gained insurance under the Affordable Care Act, or stand to lose it if the law is repealed.