All those stories about Obamacare canceling millions of insurance plans turned out to be mostly hype.
Over at Vox German Lopez had a nice follow up about all those health insurance plans that were supposedly canceled because of Obamacare. She cites a new study in Health Affairs about the nature of the old individual market place for health insurance which shows that under the old system a huge number of people’s plans would get canceled or end every year anyway. As she puts it:
In other words, the projected cancellations caused by Obamacare (6 million) are around the number of people (6.2 million) we’d expect to leave the individual marketplace each year regardless of the health-care law.
Which means that:
Obamacare might have caused insurance companies to cancel some plans and, in some cases, replace existing plans with more expansive coverage. But it doesn’t seem, at least based on the evidence so far, that the cancellations were any higher than a typical year of churn in the individual marketplace.
Or to put it another way, talking about all the canceled health insurance plans that Obamacare “caused” is not that different from saying, “Tens of thousands of Americans have been murdered since Obama took office.” Which is true! But that’s because loyd of Americans are murdered every year, regardless of who sits in the White House. Millions of people would have lost their plans under a hypothetical President McCain as well.
So why all the sound and fury over that infamous, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” quote from a few years ago? As I see it the political media is largely getting political causality backwards here. The reason there is such negative coverage over Obamacare isn’t because the president said the wrong thing a couple years ago, it’s because there were a lot of problems with the initial roll out. The reality of those problems drove the negative coverage about Obamacare and for whatever reason the political media decided to focus on this one talking point as a way to convene that negativity. Had the roll out gone perfectly the media would have probably just ignored that particular quote.
You can see this dynamic in effect in past presidencies. George W. Bush’s claim that the vast majority of his tax cuts would go to the bottom was obviously just wrong. But the media never really covered this (other than liberal bloggers and columnists) because those tax cuts were popular and easily passed Congress. While Bush’s claim about Iraq’s nuclear program and links to 9/11 or the his comments that Brownie was doing “a heck of a job” during Katrina were covered heavily because Bush’s decision to invade Iraq produced a catastrophe of biblical proportions and major American city drowned on Bush’s watch. If Bush had instead told Brownie that he was doing a “terrible job” the coverage of Hurricane Katrina still would have been heavily negative, it’s just that the media would have found a different anecdote to highlight this.
Which means the overall lesson of the “like your plan” brouhaha for presidents isn’t to come up with better talking points, it’s to avoid policy disasters whenever possible (i.e. don’t invade Iraq) and when they do happen use the power of your office to fix them ASAP (like what happened with the Obamacare website). That’s basically it.
Like The Good Men Project On Facebook
Photo by seiuhealthcare775nw/Flickr
I’m so glad I live in the UK and worrying about health insurance isn’t something I need to concern myself with! It all sounds REALLY complicated!!
Last year I found out I have Type 2 Diabetes – if I lived in the US I would probably find my insurance being invalidated due to a ‘pre-existing condition’ – in the UK however, I get free access to a dedicated diabetes nurse-specialist, free dietary advice and support, free medication for life, free… everything basically.
Our NHS is far from perfect but I know which system I’d rather be diabetic under!
if I lived in the US I would probably find my insurance being invalidated due to a ‘pre-existing condition’ – See more at: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/jka-if-you-like-your-plan-you-couldnt-keep-it-anyway/#sthash.6KFI3CFE.dpuf
The only way a condition is found to be pre-existing is if you had been diagnosed with it before you were covered by insurance. In the United States you would be examined by a doctor, not a nurse. I’ll take the USA any day. Of course with Obamacare, we’ll be getting treated by nurses too soon.
Part three …. let’s talk about “managed care?” Raise of hand of who loves “Managed care?” I’ve been in the background of managed care development and I won’t raise my hand. Both the consumer as well as the provider is gonna get screwed over this aspect of the ACA. The company I work for now was hit 5 years ago with managed care. We went from a 6 to 12 month residential program which was VERY effective, down to a 3 to six month program, A year later we went down to a 15 to 45 day program which caused… Read more »
Shortage and rationing
Part two …let’s look at where this system is heading? Large companies,most of which are “self Insured” with re-insurance plan are able to keep their costs reasonable for one reason and that is that they spread their risks. Far more well/healthy people to absorb the cost of the sick employees. They calculate their costs/risks using a variety of tools. So what tools is ACA using? Not sure but generally they will come out of “managed care.” ACA is a big self insured system that’s hoping the premiums will cover the cost of care. We haven’t gone full circle yet, so… Read more »
A few months ago, one of our IS’s was doing a group. I was passing the group room when I heard him say that Obama passed a law giving people “free healthcare.” I almost walked into the wall. Free health care? Going back to the beginning of the article, there was this statement “In other words, the projected cancellations caused by Obamacare (6 million) are around the number of people (6.2 million) we’d expect to leave the individual marketplace each year regardless of the health-care law. ” For starters, I’d like to know where that stat came from? But I… Read more »
They still cannot tell you how many “uninsured” are now covered. Does ANYONE.believe that it’s actually impossible? Calculate a sample size! And as far as the under 35 set- how many are kids? No one is being honest about this. It’s a game. A multi billion dollar game of bald faced vote buying done in the most pious was possible.
Okay, I get it. Letting people get access to health care will surly kill us all. I guess my main question is why is this one talking point so obsessively focused on while so many others are just ignored. The Bush tax cuts point is a great example of this, but there are a lot of others. We invaded Panama because Noriega was a drug dealer right? Well turns out he was never tried for all those things and instead was treated as a POW because, well he worked with the CIA for years and could divulge things that could… Read more »
John lets assume for a second everything you allege is true. Does that give Obama a ticket to blatantly lie for the purpose of getting reelected that if you like your insurance plan/doctor/premium you get to keep it. It astounds me that you will not criticize this guy. You cannot bring yourself to admit that he does anything wrong or is the least bit disingenuous. He is being played like a fiddle by Putin, Assad the new Iranian President. He is a foreign policy incompetent. The next time some guy comes knocking at your community organizing ask yourself, would I… Read more »
Its kinda like my kids… the ultimate defense is “he started it!” of course they don’t go back 30 years to do so!
Bush? Noriega? It’s going to take 1.21 Gigawatts to make that relevant at this point.
By the way, your take on Noriega isn’t exactly accurate. BUT, my points about Obamacare are.
You’re very selective on the studies you pull out regarding Obamacare- the slant is bordering on ridiculous at times. quite entertaining! However, much like your recent article on debt that ignored the fact that leverage is a risk indicator you are ignoring the some fundamental issues: 1. If you like your plan… – was stated within the context of Obamacare. It was a promise by the president who, at the time, knew it was false. The wave of cancellations was clearly driven by changes in regulation. 2. The churn in prior years didnt force the majority of people into plans… Read more »