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Conservative group’s latest ad distorts the facts about health reform
Obama for America’s Director of Constituency Press Clo Ewing explains how the latest ad from the conservative group Concerned Women of America distorts the facts about health care reform.
Today, the Concerned Women of America—a conservative advocacy group—released a new ad that claims to tell the truth about the health care law the President signed last year. But, as you might expect from a group that said birth control could be a detriment to women’s health and said abortion should be a crime punishable by death, the ad is filled with lies and distortions.
Delayed Care and Denied Care?
In the ad, we’re told that the consequences of the health care law will be “delayed care, and worse yet, denied care.” In fact, just the opposite is true. Instead of standing by as insurance companies blocked consumers from getting life-saving care, Obamacare banned the worst abuses of the insurance industry.
Lifetime caps on coverage are banned—so insurance companies can’t arbitrarily tell consumers they’ve reached a lifetime max just when they need insurance the most.
Insurance companies can no longer retroactively cancel coverage based on trivial paperwork mistakes.
When insurers try to block access to care, consumers have new appeals rights that guarantee they can get an independent expert to review—and often overturn—the insurance company’s decision.
Soon, it will finally be illegal to charge women more than men for the same coverage, or to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
Increasing Our Deficit?
We are led to believe that the health care law will “add hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit” and that “we still don’t know how much this law will eventually cost.” Wrong, and wrong again. Time after time after time, the Congressional Budget Office has said the health care law will reduce the deficit—by more than $100 billion in the first 10 years, and more than $1 trillion in the second decade. Passing health reform was the fiscally responsible thing to do, and suggesting otherwise is just dishonest.
Making Health Care Decisions in Washington?
Opponents of the health care law seem to never tire of claiming that Obamacare means health care decisions will be made in Washington. But this claim has been repeatedly debunked by fact checkers, even earning the dubious honor of “Lie of The Year.” Now, it’s true the health care law does help change where health care decisions are made, but Washington has nothing to do with it: The law takes the power away from insurers’ board rooms, and puts it in doctors’ exams rooms—where it belongs.
Reform Doesn’t Improve Care?
The ad ominously warns us that “we need real reform that improves care, and this just isn’t it.” Well, we beg to differ—and we know some others that probably agree. There’s the Lihn family in Arizona, whose insurance company now has to cover their daughter’s heart condition because of Obamacare. There’s Spike Dolomite Ward, who was able to treat her breast cancer because of Obamacare. There are 3.1 million young people who are now covered on their parents’ health insurance plans because of Obamacare. There are more than 5 million people with Medicare who have gotten discounts on prescription drugs because of Obamacare—and that’s only the beginning.
Getting One Thing Right
To be fair, there’s one thing that this ad gets right. A doctor tells us, “I don’t want anything to come between my patients and me.” We couldn’t agree more—and that’s exactly what the health care law does. Obamacare makes sure doctors and patients, not insurance companies or Washington bureaucrats, are in the driver’s seat when it comes to health care for all of us.