Let’s clear this up: The edgy “got insurance?” Obamacare ads that have gone viral on the Web were not created by the Colorado state exchange or any other governmental agency, nor are they taxpayer-funded, as two Republican congressmen have claimed.
For years, President Obama promised millions of Americans with health insurance that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” under his health care overhaul. He wasn’t the only one, either.
Conservative groups are highlighting the case of an Arizona man with leukemia whose insurance plan was canceled because it didn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Rand Paul says the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion may “bankrupt” rural hospitals in Kentucky. But state health care leaders say its hospitals stand to benefit.
We’ve been saying for years that President Obama was over-simplifying and over-promising when he kept saying, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” under the new health care law. Now reality is catching up with his political spin.
Q: Does the Affordable Care Act restrict my ability to get a mammogram?
A: No. In fact, the law requires insurers to cover mammography, with no cost-sharing, every one to two years for women starting at age 40. Medicare fully pays for mammograms once every 12 months with no upper age limit.
House Speaker John Boehner exaggerated when he said the 2.3 percent medical device excise tax in the Affordable Care Act “is costing us tens of thousands of jobs that are being shipped overseas.”
Q: Will doctors be required to ask patients questions about their sexual history under the Affordable Care Act?
A: No. A program created by the stimulus law – not Obamacare — encourages health professionals to use electronic records. But there is no requirement in the program to ask anything about sexual history.
There’s plenty of fodder for fact-checkers in Sen. Ted Cruz’s looong attack on Obamacare, and in President Obama’s defense of it.
Q: Does the health care law contain a “hidden” tax on hunting and fishing equipment?
A: No. There is a 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices. Cabela’s, a Nebraska sporting goods company, applied the tax to some of its customers’ purchases by mistake.