President Obama says the Affordable Care Act is working “a little bit better than we anticipated,” based on the 11.4 million people who signed up for insurance on the exchanges. That’s better than the administration anticipated, but worse than a CBO projection.
Q: Did the CBO say Obamacare will cost $50,000 for every person who is insured?
A: No. A newspaper calculated the cost at $50,000 per newly insured person. But that’s over 10 years and covers more than just the previously uninsured.
In his sixth annual address, the president stretched some facts on his record.
Rep. Michele Bachmann wrongly claims that we’re seeing “huge increases” in employer-sponsored plans, while President Obama touts historically low health care inflation, which experts say is mainly due to the slow economy, not the health care law.
A Democratic TV ad makes some audaciously false claims about Rep. Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s main Republican opponent.
A TV ad says Rep. Tom Cotton was “paid handsomely working for insurance companies” and wants to transform Medicare in ways that would benefit the industry at the expense of seniors. But there’s no evidence Cotton did work for insurers.
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.
Sen. Roy Blunt falsely claimed the Obama administration had “waived the income verification requirement” of the federal health care law.
Rep. Michele Bachmann claims that “vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens” will all “pay more” under the federal health care law and get “less” in return.
Q: Did the IRS say that the cheapest health insurance plan under the federal health care law would cost $20,000 per family?
A: No. The IRS used $20,000 in a hypothetical example to illustrate how it will calculate the tax penalty for a family that fails to obtain health coverage as required by law. Treasury says the figure “is not an estimate of premiums.”