My aunt on FB. Dammit. De-bunk help?

[Bertha Venation]

She posted a link to an FB group called Repeal It Now. That site says:

Lie: You can keep your own doctor. Truth: Americans will lose employer based health coverage and be forced into exchanges--and new doctors. Lie: It won't add one penny of new taxes. Truth: ObamaCare is the largest tax increase in American history. Lie: We won't add to the deficit. Truth: Recent costs estimates show tha...t we will take on trillions of dollars of new debt. Lie: ObamaCare will help Medicare and won't hurt seniors. Truth: ObamaCare steals more than $500 billion in physician reimbursements from Medicare. Doctors are already refusing patients. Lie: We won't ration healthcare. Truth: Rationing is part of the plan. Truth: We will hold these liars responsible.

Is any of this true? If not, can you point me to a de-bunking site or twelve? Thanks.

[Scootaloo]

1. Simply swap out the "lie" and "truth" and there you are.

[Scuba]

27. Exactly.

[bowens43]

2. Don't bother.

anyone who believes this nonsense won't be convinced by the truth.

[Dawgs]

28. Are you kidding?

Always respond with facts. Especially when every other friend, yours and hers, will see your response.

[CBHagman]

3. I'm not able to do the research now, but good places to start are...

Snopes, FactChecker, and Politifact. Look for Snopes and the Annenberg Center sites.

Oh, and doctors already refused patients, years ago, and rationing of care occurred under corporations. The same company to which I paid thousands of dollars for coverage limited the care I received after a heart attack.

[Lucy Goosey]

4. The new CBO report is out

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIV1ruvLghWgQR90NKj9nTNMZVKg?docId=9a41c24b986b4cf4a704ce7396bd0a27

Budget office: Obama's health law reduces deficit

By By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress' budget scorekeepers are taking a new look at President Barack Obama's health care law — and they still say it is expected to reduce federal deficits.

It's the first in-depth look by nonpartisan experts since the Supreme Court upheld most of the law last month.

But if she's already determined to hate Obamacare, I doubt that mere facts will be very helpful.

[Volaris]

24. Come on, you know better than that....

The CBO is an office of "Da Gubmint", and therefore has OBVIOUSLY been infiltrated by Muzlems, and therefore anything they report is just a part of the big Lie. what are you, anyway, some kind of dirty liberal ?

[Lucy Goosey]

32. Guilty as charged...

I am a dirty librul, if by that you mean I believe things like "facts" and "objective reality." Everyone knows real Americans feel the truth in their guts, and only hoity-toity librul elitists use fancy tools like "math" to calculate the cost of gubmint programs.

The facts have a well known librul bias, after all.

[Bluerthanblue]

5. here is one-

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=news/fact-sheet-on-the-response-to-republican-myths-in-section-2-of-hr-6079

[mike_c]

6. about one in ten American employers have already said that they intend to discontinue...

...their employee health insurance plans once the ACA begins requiring employees to buy their own plans if employers don't provide them-- read that on DU this morning, as a matter of fact-- so I think that fear is well founded.

Single payer, universal health care for all is the answer, not the ACA.

[Mojorabbit]

7. I found this

http://lifeomike.org/2012/07/03/true-or-false/

[avebury]

8. I am not sure if this is correct but it might be possible

for people to lose their company provided health insurance. If a company figures out that it costs them less money to pay the "fine/tax" is is possible that some companies might opt to pay the fine/tax then pay for health insurance for their employees.

If I am wrong about that, which I hope I am, then I would appreciate any information to correct that hunch.

[deutsey]

9. You could start by asking her to support these claims with valid evidence n/t

[Volaris]

25. Yeah no kidding. If she wants to win the argument, make HER do the work.

[PADemD]

10. Healthcare.gov

Has all the answers on the ACA and individual state info.

[JohnnyRingo]

11. How can anyone lose their employer supplied health care?

The ACA requires that employers with more than (I think) 50 workers supply their employees with health care. Those that fail to comply will be fined an amount that pays the government cost in insuring the workers.

That one lie makes the whole post suspect. Ask your aunt why she's shilling for WalMart. Ask her quite innocently if she gets a monthly check for her fine work on FaceBook.

[Igel]

15. That's not quite right.

There's a fine on employers, but already a lot of employers are looking at the fine and thinking it's cheaper than what they're paying. They couldn't link it to actual cost of insurance for a lot of reasons. Just the bookkeeping of associating employer/employee would probably kill the thing. People like the idea of being their employer's boss, it's a nice power trip, but it's not going to happen. Some *bureaucrat* will be your employer's boss and that's not the same thing at all.

Then there's Romer's little gem: Employer insurance over a certain cost is subject to a surcharge to make it less preferable to more "equal" insurance levels; old news. It's not indexed to inflation. Entailed: All employer insurance will eventually rise to that "certain cost" and be increasingly subject to a surcharge. Corollary: All employer health insurance will eventually cost the employer significantly more than equivalent coverage on the exchange. Therefore all employer-provided health insurance will go away, leaving a universal fine on companies that don't provide insurance. This she deemed a good thing because the connection between employer and health insurance is bad and health care and government should be thought of as deeply connected.

[Bertha Venation]

12. THANKS, EVERYONE!

I have what I need.

[handmade34]

13. hard to talk in

soundbites about the advantages of the ACA... makes it difficult to seriously discuss it with someone who doesn't want to consider all aspects and pros/cons

ALWAYS consider the source of any information about the ACA

http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/08/small-business.html

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/full/index.html

http://familiesusa2.org/assets/pdfs/health-reform/helping-families/National-Report.pdf

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2010/RAND_RB9557.pdf

http://www.foley.com/files/PPACASummary.pdf

http://healthreform.kff.org/the-basics/employer-penalty-flowchart.aspx
?w=800&h=1020&as=1

[Gman]

14. Zero is true

not a thing that you mention.

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. There's what your Aunt says, and there's reality

Last edited Wed Jul 25, 2012, 12:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Your Aunt Says this is a lie: You can keep your own doctor.
Your Aunt Says this is the truth: Americans will lose employer based health coverage and be forced into exchanges--and new doctors.
Reality: Your aunt may be correct that this will eventually replace employer based care. That said, your employer can switch plans every year, and cause you to switch doctors. This is especially true if all your employer offers is an HMO. With the exchanges, people should be able to select from a number of plans. You can select a plan that your doctor/medical group accepts. The exchanges solve the problem that prevented most individuals from gaining access to insurance -- they weren't members of a "group."

Your Aunt Says this is a lie: It won't add one penny of new taxes.
Your Aunt Says this is the truth: ObamaCare is the largest tax increase in American history.
Reality: If you are someone who, by choice, spends your money on an RV or a hunting cabin and then tells the world that you can't afford health insurance -- guess what; it's a tax increase. Here's the deal: if you have the money to buy health insurance, you are going to have to do it. Why? Because state and federal governments can't afford to carry you on medicaid -- you need to take responsibility for yourself and your family. The reality is that when you blow up your barbecue grill or fall off your roof or wreck your motorcycle, and you don't have medical insurance, society will not just say "ain't that too damn bad" and let you die. We're going to treat you, and you are going to end up in massive debt. Depending on your state and situation, that debt will get passed on to medicaid, or get passed on to every other health care consumer in the form of higher costs. Here's the good news: first, if you truly can't afford insurance, help will be out there; second, as everyone gets insurance, medicaid use and unpaid bills should drop, reducing costs; third, small business owners will no longer have to worry about employees trying to submit the hernia they got over the weekend as a work comp claim; fourth, nothing in the ACA that I see prevents the passage of measures that Republicans feel are necessary, such as tort reform and allowing health insurers to expand into multi-state territories; fifth, ultimately this has a much better chance of getting people treated than the current plan, which is spaghetti feeds and pancake breakfasts.


Your Aunt Says this is a lie: We won't add to the deficit.
Your Aunt Says this is the truth: Recent costs estimates show that we will take on trillions of dollars of new debt.
Reality: Your Aunt needs to provide more clarity here. Hell, Medicare (which Republicans suddenly love) will cause more debt if nothing else changes. If your Aunt is speaking strictly on ACA, it's an unknowable either way, but the probability is she's wrong. As I said above, it raises up front costs to free riders, and it does take on the added burden of pre-existing conditions. However, it provides preventative care for people who are getting none now; it should eventually reduce the medicaid burden; it should reduce unpaid debt in the system.


Your Aunt Says this is a lie:ObamaCare will help Medicare and won't hurt seniors.
Your Aunt Says this is the truth: ObamaCare steals more than $500 billion in physician reimbursements from Medicare. Doctors are already refusing patients.
Reality: First, doctors have refused medicare patients from time to time for years. That's nothing new. Second, by getting preventative care to pre-seniors now, you should lower medicare costs in the long run. Third, it isn't theft, it's moving money from one government account to another.

Your Aunt Says this is a lie: We won't ration healthcare.
Your Aunt Says this is the truth: Rationing is part of the plan.
Reality: Many Americans have a type of insurance called an HMO. Newsflash for your Aunt - HMOs are rationed healthcare. That's why they all have a primary physician to act as a gatekeeper between the insured and specialized care. Most insurance plans do not allow you to see any doctor you want, at any time you want, as part of the plan. There are doctor networks, and going outside of networks, or seeing a specialist without a referral, will cost you big bucks -- if you can even get in to see them.


Your Aunt Says this is the truth: We will hold these liars responsible.
Reality: Your Aunt should be careful what she wishes for -- it may be granted. Republicans have lied up one side and down the other about how bad the ACA will be. They should all be made to account for the lies and scare tactics they have used. Ironic, isn't it, that the ACA is modeled on the plan the Republican nominee installed when he was Governor of Massachusetts?

[Dawgs]

30. Great answers!!! I'm bookmarking for my own use later.

[Bertha Venation]

34. Excellent, just great. Thank you so much, OmahaBlueDog.

[Incitatus]

17. Truth: they provided no source or

Arguments to support their claims

[Igel]

18. You can't debunk it without figuring out what it means.

1. My employer changed health plans already because of the ACA. Some of my doctors aren't in network. Can I still see them? Sure, if I want to pay them out of pocket. Nothing's going to prohibit it. Not yet, anyway.

2. One penny of taxes to whom? The guy who doesn't get insurance but could? He'll pay. That may not be me. But if he gets insurance, no tax--even if he's now spending $1200 because of the government that he wouldn't. Is government-driven behavior a tax? Depends on how strictly you want to define "tax."

I'm a teacher. My contract says I teach 187 days, and gives duty hours. Last year there was a required 4 day training I had to attend that wasn't part of the 187. This summer I'll be attending 10 1/2 days of trainings that aren't part of the 187. These really feel like unpaid work days. Some, strictly speaking, aren't required--but I have to get in X hours of training, and can do it after duty hours or during the summer. But, really, my contract says I teach 187 and gives my duty hours. They're not unpaid work days, not at all. These are mandatory volunteer days to satisfy conditions on my contract and state requirements. Not work days at all. And that doesn't count all the non-duty hours in lesson preparation, planning meetings, student tutoring, paper grading ... Depends how strictly you want to define your terms. And that reminds me, I have online training I have to do and need to prepare a couple of units' worth of lesson plans and materials for my team for the fall. Just part of being on vacation.

3. Obama said he would sign a bill that added even a dime to the deficit.
What deficit? If I make $20k/year and budget $25k for next year I'm $5k in the hole compared to income in I spend all $25k. That's a deficit. But if I spend $25k then I'm entirely on budget and there is no deficit. A deficit is when I spend more than budgeted.

Obama planned a 10-year budget that included $900 billion increases in federal health care spending. Any bill that says it'll spend more than that would add the deficit. Alternatively, you can figure out, given what he assumed revenues would be, how much of a deficit was assumed. Any bill that says it'll spend more than that, you add to that deficit. Different numbers, but notice the sleight of hand? I'm stressing over a small amount as you swallow a huge sum, you might say. No: You've accepted that what the bill says it'll spend is what's important, which is what Obama meant. You probably thought how much money will actually be spent over 10 years was important. Perhaps to some people. Not to Congress.

In fact, Obama's promise is incoherent the way people interpreted it. Unless the ACA became law, there'd be no way to know how much it spent/saved in 10 years. Who can model that to within 20% of the true number, much less a "dime"? And if we wait for 10 years to find out he lied--big honking yippee. But he even boasted that he kept his promise. Say what?

Congress wrote a bill. They had a handicap of $900 billion to play with over 10 years. They looked at projected expenses, minused $900 billion, and got a total. Then they pulled together projected savings and revenues and got a total. Savings/revenues had to be greater than expenses. If they weren't, that would be a deficit. Then they just found more revenuesor savings. "Say 60% of ER patients go their GP. Oops. We don't save enough. Okay, make it 70%. 75%? Okay, that's good." Revenues for health care were pulled from a range of fees and revene "enhancements": a black liquor tax deduction was fought over. Projected savings from the federal student loan program reorganization is a health-care revenue source. In the end the CBO said the assumptions were wrong. But in the end, the Congress wrote the figures into the bill and the CBO had to follow the language of the bill. Congress jiggered the numbers to come in under $900 billion in increased spending for 10 years, and so the bill didn't add one dime to the deficit. Then again, Romney retired in 1999 as of 2002, so we know there's a bit of a disconnect between the real world and what the legal niceties of a situation are.

No. Obama didn't lie. But his promise was vacuous. And absurdly easily misunderstood.

4. The ACA will strengthen Medicare, it says, and make it a better program.
As before, are you going to say the law lies? But "strengthen" and "better" are weasel words. You can find definitions that make it a lie or not. Foolish to argue either way.

"Hurt seniors." That's impossible to prove.

Process: Board sets cost for procedure. Medicare has to use that price unless Congress pays the difference by saving money some place else. Congress fails to do so, and as a result doctors don't order that procedure. Quick: Who's responsible? The independent board? Medicare regulators? Congress? Stingy taxpayers? Greedy doctors? Right. Distributed responsibility makes it hard to blame anybody. Esp. since a lot of the pain will result from increased health care costs.

Note that Medicare is also partially separately funded and partially funded with dedicated taxes. There is no "Medicare," there are parts to Medicare. Some are better off than others. Some intentionally wasn't included in the ACA; some is. Medicare gets screwed up, they can just point and say, "No, it's the funding that *wasn't* in the ACA that we're cutting." Go figure. They already did figure.

5. Obama knows what he meant. I assume. I certainly don't.

We already ration healthcare. I have a deductible, copays, the doctors are only in their offices so many hours and there are only so many in-network. It may not be a person saying, "You get 23.4 minutes of doctor face-time per year, can order 3 tests of no more than $100 this year ..." but it's rationing. Those without insurance have it rationed even more tightly. We ration food in the same way. If filet mignon were free demand would be huge and we'd need rationing. I can't afford it. Oops. It's already rationed. My ration is very close to 0. Who said rationing doesn't work?

Nobody thinks that the ACA says that everybody gets all the healthcare access they want. Where would all the doctors come from? We already were expecting a shortfall in GPs, now we're saying we'll have 30% more patients for them? We won't ration healthcare. But we certainly we will. It's just a question of how. Will we have bureaucrat-staffed boards reviewing each decision? "Great-aunt Mabel won't get her liver pills this month, Gertie can't have hospice care more than 4 months this year"? No. But there will be a way of making sure that only available staff and money are used. One way will be cutting payments to doctors. They can work harder.

A huge amount of government health-care money goes to a relatively small # of younger patients and a small % of elderly. You cut costs where you have expenses. You spend 70% on food and need to cut 10% of your budget, that remaining 30% covers a lot of ground--clothing, transportation, shelter, etc. You can't cut any or all of them by 33% to save that 10% without being naked or homeless. Similarly, superusers of health care will have to either take cuts or pay more, or the cost of the service will just have to go go down overall. Same output, more output, same pay. That's a chunk of the ACA.

When you're working and you need to make more faster, it's a speed-up. When you're waiting in line for your latte, you want the counter help to hurry and make more faster it's "better customer service." Let's just hope that the doctors don't form an actual union.

[JHB]

19. It's the 10th largest...

Reagan's 1982 tax increase is #5, 60% larger than "Obamacare".




http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/02/no-obamacare-isnt-the-largest-tax-increase-in-the-history-of-the-world-in-one-chart/

[CBHagman]

20. Thanks for mentioning that!

People need reminding that taxes increased under Reagan.

By the way, the GOP is always claiming a Democrat is causing the largest! tax! increase! in! history! They pulled the same shtick with Clinton, remember, though of course they are fonder of him now that he is safely out of office.

[markpkessinger]

21. You might start with this link . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/07/24/us/politics/ap-us-health-care-overhaul-costs.html?hp

[aikoaiko]

22. Regarding taxes....

...and this is one thing that I don't like about the health care bill...

... Is that the maximum contribution to flex spending accounts was reduced to 2500 dollars pretax dollars. I had been maxing it out at 6000 dollars per year because of a wife and son with medical issues.

Essentially I will be paying more fed and state taxes taxes on the difference.

I can live with it for the greater good but I'll feel it when I have less money to spend.

[Ilsa]

26. $2500 is too low for us too.

Ours is closer to $4000, I think, but I suspect we'll benefit later if costs, overall, go down.

[aikoaiko]

29. Yes, I agree.

Plus there is the greater good for others even if not to me or mine.

[eridani]

23. Employers have absolutely no requirement to provide health insurance now

My former employer just eliminated retiree insurance. Sure, ACA says that employers have to either pay or provide insurance, but there's nothing in there about having to provide insurance that will keep you from going bankrupt if you get sick.

[lunatica]

31. Make them prove it since they put it out there as truth

The best way to debunk people like that is to ask them to prove what they're saying. Your aunt is just copy and pasting something she got in a chain email. Tell her you're interested in learning more and can she please provide you with links to these 'facts'.

You don't need to do all the heavy lifting. Let them do it.

[Bertha Venation]

33. Thanks, lunatica

I'm not very good at debating. I hadn't thought to do this.