Health care frauds vs. health care facts

[ProSense]

Health care frauds vs. health care facts

By Steve Benen

It probably didn’t get as much attention as it deserved, but something unusual happened last week: House Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) got caught telling a rather brazen lie.

GOP officials issued a “report” arguing that “only 67 percent” of consumers who enrolled in the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges paid their first month’s premiums. In this case, Republicans were lying – they deliberately published a document that included fraudulent claims, intended to deceive the public, and once caught, the officials made no real effort to deny what they’d done.

Paul Krugman took Republicans to task in his new column, condemning them for “spreading disinformation about health reform because it works, and because they can – there is no sign that they pay any political price when their accusations are proved false.”

But the GOP’s failed attempt at a con arguably looks even worse this morning, with new evidence of the Affordable Care Act’s success.

Obamacare is reducing the number of Americans without health insurance. And while nobody can say for sure exactly how many people are getting coverage, Gallup just provided a pretty big clue.

According to the organization, the proportion of adults without coverage last month fell to 13.4 percent. That’s lower than it was last year. That’s lower than it was when the Affordable Care Act became law – and when President Obama took office.

In fact, that’s lower than it’s ever been since the beginning of 2008, before the economic crisis, which is when Gallup started taking regular monthly polls on this question.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/health-care-frauds-vs-health-care-facts

Krugman: Inventing a Failure
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/opinion/krugman-inventing-a-failure.html

[Gothmog]

1. Most of the GOP's attacks on the ACA are based on lies

This is no different from the other GOP attacks on the ACA