Here are the lies Paul Ryan told about Obamacare during his town hall meeting

[flamingdem]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-ryan-townhall-20170113-story.html

We know that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) is desperate to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What he never has been able to explain adequately is why.

Oh, sure, Ryan has offered some rhetorical explanations. He says Obamacare is “collapsing.” That it’s in a “death spiral.” That it’s a “struggle” for Americans. He says a “much, much better system” could be put in its place.

Ryan made all these points, and more, during a town hall meeting Thursday evening aired by CNN. The hour-long session didn’t yield an explanation for Ryan’s haste to take action that could upend insurance coverage for more than 20 million Americans. It did underscore, however, that his description of and position on the law are based on misconceptions, misrepresentations and lies.

I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I would be dead if not for him. — Arizona Republican and ACA enrollee Jeff Jeans

Doubts about the wisdom of rushing into repeal — expressed not only by doctors, hospitals, health advocates, patients and even Republican governors — haven’t slowed the rush on Capitol Hill. On Friday, the House approved a budget resolution that will begin the process of stripping away some ACA provisions; the Senate passed its own version earlier this week. Nine Republicans crossed the aisle to oppose the measure, which otherwise passed on a party-line vote.


Here are some of the most glaring misstatements about the Affordable Care Act that came out of Ryan’s mouth during the Thursday town hall.

-- “The law is collapsing.” “We’ve got to rescue people from the collapsing of this law,” Ryan said. He didn’t specify what he means by “collapsing,” but by almost any measure of enrollment and cost this generalization has no basis in truth. Enrollment in private plans offered through the ACA exchanges for 2017 is running well ahead of the figure for 2016. Last year about 11 million people signed up for exchange plans; this year the total is projected to be 12 million. That’s not counting enrollees under Medicaid expansion, who number about 11 million.


--Premium increases. Ryan maintains that premium increases for ACA plans are unsupportable for American families. He expounded on this issue in response to a question from Jeff Jeans, a member of the town hall audience. (See accompanying video.) Jeans described himself as a small business owner and Republican who had been dead set against Obamacare — until he was diagnosed with cancer at age 49.

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today alive,” he said. “I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I would be dead if not for him.”



In Arizona, the subsidies for 2017 are rising 428% for a 27-year-old earning $25,000 and 270% for a family of four with a $60,000 income. For that family, the list price of insurance will average $1,529 a month, but the subsidy will slash that to $405, or $100 per person.

Ryan didn’t mention any of that.

--High-risk pools for preexisting conditions. Ryan understands that protection for people with preexisting medical histories is the most popular element of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans eviscerate it at their peril. He told the town hall audience that the GOP has “a better way” to guarantee coverage for those people: high-risk pools. Separating those with expensive conditions from the overall insurance pool will make insurance cheaper for everyone else, he asserted. Since “8% of all the people under 65 have that kind of preexisting condition,” sequestering them would “dramatically lower the price for the other 92%.”

“We had a really good one in Wisconsin,” Ryan said. “Utah had a great one. I was talking with a congresswoman from Washington today who was telling me how good their state high-risk pool is.”

A lot of misconceptions and untruths are packed into this spiel. It’s unclear where Ryan got his figure of 8% of Americans suffering from conditions that would relegate them to a high-risk pool, but it grossly underestimates the problem. The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in 2011 that 50 million to 129 million Americans under 65, or 19% to 50%, had some kind of preexisting condition and up to 20% of them were uninsured. The ratio rose sharply with age, so that as many as 86% of those aged 55 to 64 were at risk of being denied insurance because of their medical condition. In 2012, FamiliesUSA estimated that nearly 25% of all Americans under 65 could be denied coverage without the ACA protections.

America’s experience with state high-risk pools has been almost universally grim. Before the ACA’s enactment, 35 states had such arrangements. They were chronically underfunded and for enrollees they were expensive, with deductibles as high as $10,000 and premiums as high as double those for healthy individuals. Every state excluded coverage for as long as a year for the very conditions that made their users uninsurable on the open market. They typically imposed benefit limits too low to pay for treatment, time limits for enrollees, and waiting lists.

For these reasons and others, by 2000 the pools were covering only 8% of the uninsurable population, according to a survey by health economist Austin Frakt. (That may be where Ryan got his figure, but if so he made a glaring error.) Economist Harold Pollack calculated in 2010 that if a nationwide pool covered only 4 million people with a history of emphysema, stroke, cancer or a heart condition, it would cost more than $24 billion a year and would still need to impose waiting periods before coverage of a condition and other restrictions. Whether a Republican Congress fixated on budget-cutting would appropriate that kind of money is doubtful.

As for the success stories Ryan touted, he’s overstating the case. Wisconsin’s pool did better than most, with 23,000 enrollees in 2013, but imposed deductibles of at least $5,000, premiums of twice the standard rate, and a six-month waiting period for coverage of a preexisting condition. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert was already fretting about the rising cost of his state’s high-risk pool in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was enacted and took the problem off his hands.

[flamingdem]

1. Biggest lie, unanswered question:

The most important question that Ryan dodged on Thursday, and again after Friday’s House vote, is what’s the rush? Repealing almost any part of the ACA will leave the individual insurance market in worse shape than it is now, and possibly worse than it was before the ACA. That’s especially true as long as no replacement plan is on the table. There are many routes to improving the Affordable Care Act without eroding public protections. If Ryan is truly intent on improving the lives of Americans dependent on the act, why does he have to shroud his intentions with misstatements and misrepresentations?

WHY do we put up with these charlatans!!!

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Notice were the big increase

in rates are happening. RED STATES that fought the ACA until the Supreme Court made it's ruling. Arizona and their Governor finger thumper fought it tooth and nail.

[flamingdem]

3. Good point, like they planned for this moment

Their egos are so huge, talent so tiny

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Believe there are

some 15-20 States Attorneys who caused their Residents to be uninsured until those states lost their case at the Supreme Court. They did every thing possible to delay the implementation of ACA in their respective States. Now we see the after math of their gamesmanship. The Republican Party never anticipated one of their own pieces of Social Legislation would be so successful and it is a embarrassed to their morals.

[Thinkingabout]

5. What amazes me is the Republicans has voted to repeal the ACA and not one time have they tried

to correct any problems they conceive may need changing. It is a political cry and a sick one, shame on the Republicans, they are playing with our health care.