The Obama Administration is preparing a taxpayer-financed multi-million dollar political marketing campaign to promote ObamaCare. While the Administration claims this is needed to “educate” the public about the law, the Administration’s own marketing materials make clear they are more interested in spreading misinformation than providing facts for the American people.
The HHS healthcare.gov website, which itself is financed through a multi-million dollar contract with a public relations firm, currently has a sleek brochure entitled “For Small Businesses: The Facts on the New Health Care Law.” On Page 13, The Brochure includes:
| Aren’t premiums in the employer
insurance market going to go up? Historically, premiums have gone up rapidly. The Affordable Care Act helps change that by working to control costs. Starting September 1, 2011, in every State and for the first time ever, insurance companies are required to publicly justify their actions if they want to raise rates by 10 percent or more. Health policy experts and economists who have looked at the health care law have said that it pursues the full range of tools to reduce health care costs. And a family of four would save as much as $2,300 on their premiums in 2014 compared to what they would have paid without the law. |
- In March 2010, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that, “Under PPACA and the Reconciliation Act, premiums for health insurance in the individual market will be somewhat higher than they would otherwise be.”
- The recent Society of Actuaries report concluded that ObamaCare will increase costs of health insurance policies by an average of 32 percent.
- In Maryland, one of the first states to post insurers' premium rates under ObamaCare, “CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, for example, has proposed a 25 percent rate increase to many of its plans in the individual and small group markets. In the company’s filing, CareFirst — the region’s largest insurer — attributes the increase largely to new rules under the Affordable Care Act.”
- The Milliman group study of premiums in the California market showed, “For those who already have insurance, the Affordable Care Act is expected to increase premiums by 14 percent.”
- According to a report from the Administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, once the ObamaCare Exchanges and Medicaid expansion take effect in 2014, private health insurance premium growth will increase 108 percent faster than what would have occurred without ObamaCare. Also in 2014, national health spending is projected to rise 39.6 percent faster than what would have occurred without ObamaCare.
- Even Secretary Sebelius admitted recently, “These folks will be moving into a really fully insured product for the first time, and so there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market,”
Ways and Means Press Office
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