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Fiction |
Fact |
| Health care reform is a government
takeover. It's socialist. |
Health care reform builds on the current system
of private health insurance, and private insurance coverage
actually will increase under reform. |
| Health care reform means you will have to give
up the health plan and doctor you have now. Government
bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., will be telling you and your
doctor what you can and cannot do. |
Every American still will be able to choose his or her own
doctor and health plan and make care decisions with that doctor.
Doctors will not be told what to do by Washington bureaucrats,
but will get much more support providing quality care.
Reform will put a stop to many of the hassles you and your
doctor experience now with insurance companies. |
| Because of this new law, employers will be able
to cut collectively bargained health benefits or require union
members to pay more. |
Nothing in the reform bill changes employer obligations
under federal law to bargain collectively with your union on
mandatory subjects of bargaining such as health benefits.
Rather, by helping to bring down health care costs, reform will
put your union in a stronger position at the bargaining table. |
| Health care reform cuts Medicare and Social
Security. |
Health care reform does not cut any guaranteed Medicare
benefits. It increases Medicare benefits by providing free
preventive care and cheaper brand-name drugs and closing the
"donut hole" in Medicare Part D. Reform also strengthens
the Medicare trust funds. The cost savings in Medicare
come from insurance companies and health care providers, not
from seniors. The reform legislation makes no changes at
all to Social Security. |
| Health care reform is too expensive and will
swell the budget deficit. |
Reform will reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over
10 years and by another $1.2 trillion in the following decade,
according to the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO). |
| We cannot afford to fix health care in an
economic crisis. |
We cannot afford not to fix health care. Rising health care
costs are bankrupting families and businesses, and are the cause
of our long-term deficit problems. Without reform, we cannot
possibly bring health care costs under control. |
| Health care reform will kill jobs. |
Rising health care costs are killing jobs now. Reform
will help create jobs by laying the groundwork for bringing
health care costs under control and by giving businesses more
affordable coverage options. |
| The "individual mandate" to buy health insurance
is unconstitutional. |
To make it possible to outlaw insurance company abuses,
health care reform imposes a modest penalty on individuals who
can afford to pay for their own insurance but fail to do so.
This "individual mandate" is one of many Republican ideas
incorporated into the bill. The penalty is clearly
constitutional under Congress' authority to "lay and collect
taxes to provide for the general welfare" and to "regulate
commerce among the several states." Most legal experts
agree the Supreme Court is extremely unlikely to strike down the
individual mandate, and would have to reject decades of
precedent to do so. |
| Health care reform will lead to rationing. |
Reform will not change your health plan if you already have
one, and will not reduce benefits under Medicare or Medicaid.
Nothing will stand between you and your doctor or prevent you
from making the best health care decisions. But reform
will end current forms of rationing by preventing insurance
companies from denying you the care you need and by enabling 321
million uninsured people to obtain coverage. |
| Health care reform will raise taxes on the
middle class. |
By far the biggest tax revenue to pay for reform is a tax on
those who earn more than $200,000 per year ($250,000 for joint
returns). The excise tax on high-cost insurance plans has
been reduced 85 percent from the original proposal, and accounts
for only 3 percent of the bill's funding. |
| Health care reform will increase premiums. |
The CBO projects that reform actually will lower premiums
slightly for group health plans and by 14 percent to 20 percent
(for the same coverage) for people who purchase their own
insurance individually in the exchanges. It will lower
costs by reducing cost-shifting for uncompensated care for the
uninsured, creating more competition under the new exchanges,
reimbursing plans for the costs of early retirees, allowing
individuals to obtain group rates in the exchanges and
instituting cost-saving delivery and payment reforms under
Medicare that will set the standard for the private sector. |
| Democrats rammed health care reform down our
throats too fast even though the American people oppose it. |
In 1008 President Obama and House and Senate Democratic
majorities ran on a platform of health care reform, and the
American people elected them. Congress then debated health
care reform for 14 months. Senate Democrats incorporated
147 Republican amendments and abandoned popular ideas (such as
the public option) that Republicans did not like. IN fact,
health care reform mirrors the plan championed by Republican
Gov. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and a 1994 proposal by Senate
Republicans. The Senate passed its bill with a
supermajority of 60 votes. Polls show that a majority of
Americans approve of this legislation and strongly approve of
its various components. |
| VA (veterans') care will be cut. |
Nothing in health care reform will hurt or change veterans'
health care, which has seen historic increases under this
Congress and continues to improve. |
| Health care reform will lead to a shortage of
doctors. |
Health reform expands the number of trained doctors in our
country through new scholarships, loans, and loan repayment
assistance to help recruit new doctors and nurses, especially
primary care providers. It also raises pay for primary
care physicians to encourage them to stay in the field. |
| The IRS will hire up to 18,000 new staff to
audit people to check their health insurance status. |
The claim about "18,000" new IRS agents was the invention of
Republican congressional staff trying to scare people. The
IRS commissioner recently testified the agency will not audit
individuals to verify their compliance, and insurance companies
will merely certify to the IRS that an individual has coverage.
The major role for the IRS will be to educate, notify and help
people and businesses apply for new subsidies and tax
incentives. |
| 2010 |
-
Bars insurance companies from
denying coverage to children who have pre-existing
conditions.
-
Prohibits insurance companies
from dropping your coverage because you get sick.
-
Enables uninsured people with
pre-existing conditions to get coverage through a high-risk
pool. (They can get coverage through the health care
exchanges when they are operational.)
-
Eliminates lifetime coverage
limits and restricts annual limits.
-
Allows you to keep your
children on your plan until they turn 26.
-
Starts phasing in tax credits
to help qualified small businesses provide coverage to
employees.
-
Starts closing the Medicare
prescription drug “donut hole” with a $250 rebate for people
who fall into the donut hole.
-
Helps companies offset the
cost of providing coverage to early retirees.
-
Requires new group and
individual plans to cover preventive services.
-
Requires insurers to report
on how much of their premiums is actually spent on medical
care and give rebates for excessive costs.
-
Provides tax relief,
low-interest loans, scholarships and loan repayments for
health care professionals and students to expand and
strengthen the health care workforce, especially in primary
care.
-
Provides funds to build and
expand community health centers.
-
Requires new group and
individual plans to include a process for appealing coverage
and claim denials.
|
| 2011 |
-
Provides free preventive care
for Medicare beneficiaries, encourages states to cover free
preventive care for Medicaid recipients and requires new
plans to cover preventive care with little or no
cost-sharing.
-
Continues closing the
Medicare prescription drug donut hole by providing a 50
percent discount on brand-name drugs in the donut hole.
-
Makes it easier for small
businesses to offer employees tax-free fl exible spending
accounts for health care costs.
-
Provides grants to states for
consumer assistance programs.
-
Allows state Medicaid
programs to cover home- and community-based care for people
with disabilities instead of institutional care.
-
Begins curbing excessive
payments to private Medicare Advantage plans.
|
| 2012 |
|
| 2013 |
|
| 2014 |
Prohibits health plans from
imposing annual limits on the amount of coverage you can
get.
Opens health insurance
exchanges in each state to individuals and small employers,
allowing people to comparison shop.
Makes insurance affordable
for lower-income people through tax credits and vouchers to
use in the exchanges and by expanding access to Medicaid.
Requires most people to have
health insurance or pay a penalty.
Requires employers with 50 or
more employees that don’t provide health coverage to pay a
fee for employees who have to get subsidies to buy their own
insurance in the exchanges.
Continues phasing in the tax
credits to help qualified small businesses provide insurance
coverage for workers.
|
| 2015 |
|
| 2018 |
-
Begins the excise tax on
employer-provided health plans costing more than $27,500 for
family coverage and $10,200 for individual coverage. For
retirees and workers in high-risk professions, the
thresholds are $30,950 for family coverage and $11,850 for
individual coverage. Thresholds will increase with inflation
and if the group has a large number of older members or
women. The work of union activists reduced the excise tax by
85 percent from the original proposal by raising the
thresholds and pushing back the effective date.
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