More broken promises: Obamacare was supposed to provide a wider choice of doctors and lower premiums, but it is doing neither

"70 percent of insurers are offering narrow or ultra narrow hospital networks"

Detailing PolitiFact's continued efforts to protect Obama and Obamacare

I have had real problems with Politifact's objectivity on the gun issue (see also here), but apparently it doesn't do a better job when it comes to Obamacare.  Avik Roy at Forbes details how Politifact constantly covered up Obama's false statements about Obamacare.  What is now the "lie of the year" was originally rated by Politifact as "True" when it should have been obvious to everyone (not just the Congressional Budget Office) that it was impossible to be true.  Roy notes that even as late as the summer of 2012 Politifact was still rating the promise that you could keep your plan as "Half True."  So what happens

USA Today has put together a very partial list of Democrats who made the same promise about Obamacare as Obama:

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, June 10, 2009: We here in the Senate are working on legislation that will protect people's choice of doctors, will protect their choice of hospitals, will protect their choice of insurance plan. If you like what you have today, that will be what you have when this legislation is passed. (Source: Remarks on the Senate floor.)

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, July 28, 2009: The reform we are pursuing … not only means making sure you can keep your family's doctor or keep your health care plan if you like it but also that you can afford to do so. (Source: Remarks on the Senate floor.)

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, July 30, 2009: Many people say: I like my health insurance right now. I don't want to change. I don't want to go into Medicare or Medicaid. I like what I have. Would you please leave people alone. The answer is yes. In fact, we guarantee it. We are going to put in any legislation considered by the House and Senate the protection of you, as an individual, to keep the health insurance you have, if that is what you want. What we are trying to create are voluntary choices and opportunities. (Source: Remarks on the Senate floor.)

President Obama, Aug. 15, 2009: At the same time — I just want to be completely clear about this; I keep on saying this but somehow folks aren't listening — if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health care plan. (Source: Remarks from town hall on health care.)

Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska, Dec. 24, 2009: Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it. (Source: Press release.)

President Obama, March 25, 2010: From this day forward, all of the cynics, all the naysayers — they're going to have to confront the reality of what this reform is and what it isn't. They'll have to finally acknowledge this isn't a government takeover of our health care system. They'll see that if Americans like their doctor, they'll be keeping their doctor. You like your plan? You'll be keeping your plan. No one is taking that away from you. (Source: Remarks in Iowa City, Iowa.)

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Sept. 29, 2010: From the beginning, the law has been about preserving what is good about American health care. That is why one of the central promises of health care reform has been and is: If you like what you have, you can keep it. That is critically important. If a person has a plan,and he or she likes it, he or she can keep it. (Source: Remarks on the Senate floor.)

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, April 6, 2012: This bill will help make health insurance more secure for those who already have it and make coverage available for millions of uninsured Americans. And it is important to remember that for those who already have health insurance, the law allows you to keep your existing plan. (Source: Press release.)

President Obama, June 28, 2012: First, if you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance — this law will only make it more secure and more affordable. (Source: Remarks on Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act.)

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, web page accessed Nov. 11, 2013: If you like your current health insurance, you will be able to keep it. And you will be able to continue seeing your current doctor. Health care reform would simply give you the choice to change insurance providers if you so choose. (Source: Q & A webpage.)

Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, fact sheet accessed Nov. 11, 2013: For middle class families, health care reform … Ensures you can keep the coverage you have and guarantees coverage if you change or lose your job. (Source: Fact sheet.)

White House web page, accessed Nov. 11, 2013: If you like your plan you can keep it and you don't have to change a thing due to the health care law. The President addressed concerns from Americans who have received letters of policy cancellations or changes from their insurance companies in an interview with NBC News, watch the video or read a transcript. (Source: White House website.)

A woman whose 17-year-old daughter has undergone 86 surgeries since birth loses her insurance

So much for Obama's promises that this woman could keep her insurance, her family doctors, and pay less.  Three broken promises in one case.

She was paying over $1,800 a month and now that’s going up to $3,000 per month with an even higher deductible. But even more than that, she won’t be able to go to the same hospital nor use her same doctor that she’s had all this time. . . .

Some of Obama's broken promises on healthcare

1) President Obama promised that the cost of insurance would go down “by $2,500 per family per year” or "by up to $2,500 per family per year."  Here is the promise made over 20 times during just his 2008 presidential campaign.



2) Obama during a joint address to Congress on healthcare in September 2009: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future.  I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.”

3) “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.”

4) "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."  He made this claim publicly at least 37 times in speeches.

5) That Obamacare will create jobs.

Spanish-language version of the ObamaCare website will not be ready by the end of the month

From The Hill newspaper:

The Spanish-language version of the ObamaCare website will not be ready by the end of the month, despite administration assurances that it would be.
Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters told The Associated Press that the administration will launch the Spanish-language version in early December. . . .
The administration now says it will hold off promoting the Spanish language site until later in the year, saying it wants to gather feedback from advocacy groups after the site launches.
“We think it's important to engage with key stakeholders and organizations in this process and get their feedback,” Peters told the AP.
Millions of Latinos remain without health insurance, and their enrollment is considered central to the broader success of the Affordable Care Act. Around three in 10 Latinos are uninsured — more than any other ethnic group.
In the interim, the administration has said that Spanish-speaking consumers can call the bilingual ObamaCare hotline. . . .

Three broken Obama promises in one case: More vulnerable people lose their health insurance because of Obamacare

Add this story of a Virginia cancer patient who is losing her health insurance to the long list of other similar tragic cases (see here for some stories).  From CBS DC:

A woman battling kidney cancer is losing her health insurance because her company’s health plan is being canceled due to Obamacare. 

Debra Fishericks, who has been working for the past 10 years at Atkinson Realty in Virginia Beach, has been scouring HealthCare.gov for a plan that fits her, but is finding that current premiums and plans are out of her price range. 

“They just go up high and higher when there is a pre-existing,” Fishericks told CBS News. “Will I have my same specialist? Will I have to search for other specialists? There’s so many unanswered questions.” 

Owner Betsy Atkinson doesn’t understand why they have to lose their insurance since they were happy with it and it was affordable. . . .

Two broken promises (and a third possibly broken) in one case: she was happy with her current health insurance, the prices are going up, and she probably won't be able to keep her current doctor (she can't even tell what policies will cover her current doctor so that seems likely).  

Obama's lawless push back of the sign up date for Obamacare until after Nov election said to be "good news," hides insurance prices in other ways

Add another rewriting of the Obamacare law without going through congress, President Obama has delayed the sign up for Obamacare in 2015 from October 15th to November 15th this coming year.  From a few weeks before the election to just after the election.  Very clearly this is an attempt to push back the sticker shock people are going to feel from the higher premiums next year until after the election.  This in addition to pushing back by a year the limit of out of pocket payments and the employer mandate.  From Fox News:

. . . The administration will allow consumers to start signing up on Nov. 15, 2014, as opposed to Oct. 15. Enrollment will last until Jan. 15, 2015, instead of Dec. 7.  

An HHS official told Fox News the move will give insurers "the benefit of more time to evaluate their experiences during the 2014 plan year" and let them take into account late-filing customers when setting their 2015 rates.  

The official added: "This change is good news for consumers, who will have more time to learn about plans before enrolling and an open enrollment period that's a week longer." . . .

George Will's comments on this delay being "too clever" are available here. This is only one of many things that the Obama administration is trying to hide.  The whole point of the Obamacare marketplace was to allow comparisons between plans, but that ability to make comparisons is part of the website that isn't functioning.  Some have argued that if people saw how high the premiums were to begin with they wouldn't go through the long process of signing up, but that since they only find that out at the end people will feel that they have already made that big investment in time so that they might as well still sign up.  From NewsMax:

A key feature of the Obamacare website that would let people window-shop for plans and pricing data was one of the few functions that actually worked — yet administration officials told Congress it "failed miserably" before the Oct. 1 launch, CNN reported Friday.
CNN reported that documents show the "Anonymous Shopper" function passed a key test almost two weeks before the HealthCare.gov launch, yet was turned off and is still unavailable to users. . . .
House Republicans suspect the function was turned off to hide the sticker shock of insurance plans' costs and force Americans to jump through hoops before they could shop, CNN reported.
"Anonymous Shopper" was supposed to let people compare health insurance plans without opening an account, verifying their identity, or determining whether they qualified for a federal subsidy, CNN noted.
Ironically, that's exactly the feature matching President Barack Obama's stated vision for the federal website: to operate just like retail sites that Americans browse and buy from every day, CNN reported. . . .

The notion that this one month delay is "good news for consumers" is pretty funny.  It is surprising that the media seems to take this claim seriously.  Take the way CNN discusses this.  They barely give any serious coverage to the claim that there is a political motivation for the change, providing much, much more time to the White House view.  From CNN:

White House spokesman Jay Carney denied Friday that next year's midterm elections are the reason behind the administration's decision to postpone the 2014 opening date for 2015 enrollment in Obamacare -- from October 15 to November 15. 

Pushing back the start date, Carney said, will give insurers more time to get an idea of their new pool of customers before they set their 2015 rates. 

Some critics, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that the move was simply a political ploy and that any changes to health care plans, such as premium increases, for example, should be public before the election. 

But Carney said the administration expects more people to sign up for health care insurance at the end of the current, initial open enrollment period -- which ends March 31, 2014 -- in part because of the website problems, so starting the next enrollment window later in the year would buy insurers more time to assess the situation. . . .

Doctors are learning about how Obamacare will set their pay scales, another broken Obama promise

So much for Obama's promise if you like your doctor, you can keep him.  Are we also going to see a lot fewer doctors soon?  From McClatchy:

Many doctors are disturbed that they’ll be paid less – often a lot less – to care for the millions of patients who are projected to buy coverage through the health law’s new insurance marketplaces. 

Some have complained to medical associations – including those in Texas, California, Georgia, Connecticut and New York – saying the discounted rates could lead to a two-tiered system in which fewer doctors participate, perhaps making it harder for consumers to get the care they need. . . . 

People “may experience wait times to get in, but that is not unique to people in exchange plans,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, . . . 

People “may experience wait times to get in, but that is not unique to people in exchange plans,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, . . . 

A survey by the Medical Society of the State of New York found that 40 percent of more than 400 physicians who had responded so far said they’d chosen not to participate in a health insurer’s exchange plan, and one-third said they did not know whether they were participating or not. . . .

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/20/209165/doctors-are-concerned-about-pay.html#storylink=cpy 

So you don't get to keep your doctor?: Now thousands of doctors are being dropped from insurance plans

Remember the promise about being able to keep your doctor?  Did you want to keep your doctor?  Well, they were probably subpar too, right?  Obama is just protecting you from those subpar doctors.  From Reuters:

UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. 

The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company's other healthcare business. The company also reported spending more healthcare premiums on medical claims in the third quarter, due mainly to government cuts to payments for Medicare Advantage services. . . . 

The insurer told the WSJ that its provider networks were always changing and that it expected its Medicare Advantage network to be 85 percent to 90 percent of its current size by the end of 2014. . . .

So much for Obamacare controlling insurance premiums

Note this graph doesn't yet include the big changes that will take place on January 1st.  But what we are already seeing I think qualifies as another promise broken by President Obama.  During his press conference yesterday, President Obama again attacked insurance companies, blaming them for any future problems with Obamacare.

And -- and so what we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan. Now, what folks may find is the insurance companies may still come back and say, we want to charge you 20 percent more than we did last year, or we're not going to cover prescription drugs now. But that will -- that's in the nature of the market that existed earlier. . . .

The data is available from the "CPI-U News Release Companion File" at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

UPDATE: On a related point, you have to love this headline: "Revealed: Obamacare plans will cost MORE 'in many cases' even with government subsidies, officials admit for the first time."

More fallout with people facing higher costs and losing insurance because of Obamacare

1) 106,000 New Jersey Residents will face large increases in health insurance because of Obamacare.  Despite Obama's promise, they won't be able to keep their current policies even if they are very happy happy with it.  Obama might claim that these additional provisions are essential, but not every one agrees.  If these were essential, people could have bought them if they wanted.  From NJ.com:

. . . About 106,000 people in the Garden State are insured under what are known as "basic and essential," or B&E, health care plans, according to state data. Since 2003, all health insurers that operate in New Jersey’s individual health market have been required to sell these plans which, as their name implies, offer only a thin layer of coverage for things such as doctor’s office visits and procedures that don’t involve a hospital stay. 

But while B&E plans were meant to help young families get coverage and stanch the drop of enrollment in the individual health market, their relatively low price — as little as a couple hundred dollars a month for some people — made them the most popular option for those who don’t get insurance through an employer or a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid. About 71 percent of those covered by the individual health market have a B&E plan. 

Soon no longer. 

In addition to requiring most everyone to carry health insurance, the Affordable Care Act — better known as Obamacare — starting next year will force health care plans to cover certain essential services while capping the out-of-pocket fees people pay in addition to their premiums. . . .

Who got these policies?

Many people who buy B&E coverage tend to be self-employed or work for a small, family-owned business, said Mike Munoz, senior vice president of sales and marketing at AmeriHealth. . . . 

About 25,000 of those enrolled were under the age of 24, suggesting that some parents use the plans to cover their children. Another 19,000 enrollees were women between the age of 50 and 64. And just about 10,700 were men and women between the ages of 25 and 30 subscribed to a B&E plan. . . .

This breaks both Obama's promise to lower premiums by $2,500 for a family of four and "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance."

2) Meanwhile, even a large company such as UPS is being effected.

According to Kaiser, UPS (NYSE: UPS) told white-collar workers two months ago that 15,000 working spouses eligible for coverage by their own employers would be excluded from the UPS plan in 2014. 

UPS expects the move, which applies to non-union U.S. workers only, to save about $60 million a year, company spokesman Andy McGowan said. 

The health law requires large employers to cover employees and dependent children, but not spouses or domestic partners, Kaiser adds. . . . 

3) Delta Air Lines says that its health care costs will increase by "nearly $100 million" next year.

A recently-leaked letter from Delta Air Lines to the Obama administration states that the “cost of providing health care to our employees will increase by nearly $100,000,000 next year,” much of it due to Obamacare. . . .

UP to 75% of health insurance plans could pay 40% tax within next 10 years: Another reason why Obamacare won't let you keep your current policy

The 40% tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans will hit the vast majority of plans over the next decade.  Here is one of the finer points that was missed in the health care debate: the "Cadillac" tax wasn't indexed for inflation.  From the NY Times:

. . . Bradley Herring, a health economist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, suggested the result would be more widely felt than many people realize. “The reality is it is going to hit more and more people over time, at least as currently written in law, ” he said. Mr. Herring estimated that as many as 75 percent of plans could be affected by the tax over the next decade — unless employers manage to significantly rein in their costs. . . .
The trend is accelerating. The percentage of employers revising their plans as a result of the tax has increased to 17 percent this year from 11 percent in 2011, according to a survey of United States companies released this month by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. . . .

This makes no economic sense.  Suppose that you want to get rid of tax credits for health insurance.  First, you aren't getting rid of them.  You are replacing these credits with income based transfers under Obamacare.  Second, the 40% tax rate is unrelated to the income tax rate that people are paying.  This 40% tax rate means that lower income tax rate people will face greater disincentive to get Cadillac plans than higher income individual.  Obamacare is making the system amazingly complicated.

Unions are finally acknowledging Obama broke his promise that “nothing in this plan will require you to change your coverage or your doctor"

Are unions really that dumb that they couldn't realize that Obama had clearly broken his promise earlier that “nothing in this plan will require you to change your coverage or your doctor"?  Some one needs to ask the unions why they didn't realize this problem until now?  Did they think that the Obama wasn't serious about what he wanted?  Or that Democrats would radically rewrite the law?  From The Hill newspaper:

Labor unions are breaking with President Obama on ObamaCare.
Months after the president’s reelection, a variety of unions are publicly balking at how the administration plans to implement the landmark law. They warn that unless there are changes, the results could be catastrophic.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) — a 1.3 million-member labor group that twice endorsed Obama for president — is very worried about how the reform law will affect its members’ healthcare plans. Last month, the president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers released a statement calling “for repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act.”
UNITE HERE, a prominent hotel workers’ union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are also pushing for changes.
In a new op-ed published in The Hill, UFCW President Joe Hansen homed in on the president’s speech at the 2009 AFL-CIO convention. Obama at the time said union members could keep their insurance under the law, but Hansen writes “that the president’s statement to labor in 2009 is simply not true for millions of workers.” . . .

Wait a second here. Weren't benefits such as benefits such as preventive care supposed to lower health insurance costs?

So much for Obamacare controlling health care costs.

While the most sweeping provisions of the health care overhaul have not yet gone into effect, plenty of Americans will still be paying higher insurance premiums this year -- as insurance companies try to preemptively cover the cost of a tax increase included in President Obama's Affordable Care Act. 

That tax doesn't take effect until next year, when other major provisions like the so-called "individual mandate" and insurance subsidies also kick in. But that hasn't stopped insurance companies from charging higher premiums this year to cover the hike, as well as the cost of ObamaCare benefits such as free birth control and preventive care. 

Premiums for individuals and small businesses are projected to increase due to the tax by roughly 2 percent this year and by as much as 3.7 percent in 2023, according to a widely cited analysis by the insurance industry. 

Officials will argue about who is to blame for the hike -- insurance companies for sticking customers with the cost, or the government for imposing the industry tax hike in the first place. But the projected increases are the latest sign that Americans, in exchange for expanding and strengthening insurance coverage, will in many cases be paying more.  . . .

Another broken Obama promise: Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits

Remember Obama's promise to make health insurance more affordable?  Addressing Congress on September 9, 2009, President Obama said, “The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.”

Now this in the New York Times:

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers. 

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own. 

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014. 

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month. . . .

Aetna CEO says some health insurance premiums will double because of Obamacare

So much for Obama's promises.  From Bloomberg News:

Health insurance premiums may as much as double for some small businesses and individual buyers in the U.S. when the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions start in 2014, Aetna Inc. (AET)’s chief executive officer said. 

While subsidies in the law will shield some people, other consumers who make too much for assistance are in for “premium rate shock,” Mark Bertolini, who runs the third-biggest U.S. health-insurance company, told analysts yesterday at a conference in New York. The prospect has spurred discussion of having Congress delay or phase in parts of the law, he said. 

“We’ve shared it all with the people in Washington and I think it’s a big concern,” the CEO said. “We’re going to see some markets go up as much as as 100 percent.” 

Bertolini’s prediction is at odds with Congressional Budget Office estimates . . . .

Another Broken Obama Promise: Price of Health Insurance up 13.9% over last year

Health insurance costs have soared 8.2 times faster than inflation over the last year! From the BLS.

"Individual Mandate: Obama v. Obama"

Surprise increase in the cost of Obamacare for next fiscal year

Some technicalities apparently have some real consequences. So much for Obama's promises about how much Obamacare would cost.From the AP:

Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.
Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program.
The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.
At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014.
Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period. . . .

30 percent of employers may soon drop health insurance for their employees

Boy, this is a big surprise. NOT. The fee for going through the government insurance is very small compared to what the insurance actually costs, so why not let the taxpayers pick up the tab. So much for the government estimates on how many people would stay on private insurance. Remember these additional costs will blow the budget apart. From Fox News:

Three years before the new health care law takes full effect, a survey of employers has found 30 percent of them are thinking about dropping coverage, in part because most employees will have an alternative -- government-subsidized insurance exchanges.
McKinsey & Company commissioned a survey of 1,329 private sector employers in February and found that three out of 10 respondents who said their companies offered employer-sponsored health insurance said they would "definitely" or "probably" drop coverage in the years following 2014, the year the Affordable Care Act takes full effect.
"The employer knows there's no reason to provide private, expensive coverage if there's free options available from the government," said John Goodman, of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.
Workers in the exchanges making all the way up to more than $90,000 in income would get generous federal subsidies. For lower-wage workers, the government would pay almost the entire cost of insurance.
"For a $12,000-dollar health insurance plan, if you make about $30,000 a year, the government pays about $11,000 of the premium," Goodman said. . . .