GOP Still Hypocritically Attacking Health Care Reform

GOP Attacks

Three things are abundantly clear about President Obama's new health care law three months after it became law. First, the American people remain squarely opposed to it. Second, it is off to a rocky start, having failed to live up to specific promises made by President Obama and Washington Democrats. Third, Republicans have listened to the American people, heard the rising public backlash against the new law, and offered better solutions. [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

Since most of the more contentious provisions of health care reform are still years away, it's plainly obvious that the report is less a scathing indictment of health care reform legislation and more a reflection of just how distraught Republicans are that President Obama and his allies overcame their obstruction and delivered on one of his main campaign promises.

Health care reform legislation is not perfect.  Very few people have argued that it is.  It has flaws, as would be expected for legislation of its magnitude.  But it's better than what we had before and definitely better than the so-called "free market solutions" Republicans are offering.  In this case, as in most, the Republican Party's criticism of legislation, besides being hypocritical, is also very dishonest.

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

Rather than creating jobs "immediately" as promised, this government takeover of health care, with its massive tax hikes and burdensome new mandates on businesses, is making it harder to put people back to work. [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

We are in the middle of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.  The economy has shed millions of jobs.  Without Democratic initiatives, the economy that President Obama inherited from President Bush might still be in a tailspin.  Yet it is slowly but surely recovering and as it does so, jobs in the health care sector are sure to follow.

Republicans Love Seniors

Of all the failures of President Obama's new health care law, perhaps the cruelest is its attack on America's seniors. The President and congressional Democrats are trying to claim their new health care law protects seniors and preserves their benefits. At the signing ceremony, the President said, 'I want seniors to know, despite what some have said, these reforms will not cut your guaranteed benefits.' [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

Republicans love seniors and want to keep Medicare as strong and generous as possible.  Or that's what they've been saying for the past several months.  But for anyone who has been paying attention to how little Republicans care for the social safety net, their claim is demonstrably disingenuous.  It is true that some provisions of Medicare, particularly those under the semi-privatized Medicare Advantage program, will be restructured.  But what would Republicans do differently to save Medicare?  Why, they'd do away with the program altogether!

As Paul Krugman explains:

Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare's rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that's more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.

What I'm talking about here is the "Roadmap for America's Future," the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it's pretty clear that Mr. Ryan's vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.

The broad picture that emerges from the "roadmap" is of an economic agenda that hasn't changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago. [New York Times, 2/12/10]

Rising Costs

Unfortunately, experts have confirmed that the new law would actually increase premiums and make it harder for families and small businesses to afford quality care.
[Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

According to PolitiFact.com, that is untrue:

"The CBO reported that, for most people, premiums would stay about the same, or slightly decrease. This was especially true for people who get their insurance through work. (Health policy wonks call these the large group and small group markets.) People who have to go out and buy insurance on their own (the individual market) would see rates increase by 10 to 13 percent. But more than half of those people -- 57 percent, in fact -- would be eligible for subsidies to help them pay for the insurance. People who get subsidies would see their premiums drop by more than half, according to the CBO. So most people would see their premiums stay the same or potentially drop." [PolitiFact.com, 1/27/10]

PolitiFact.com investigated a similar claim by Rep. Mike Pence in November of 2009, and found that it was a serious misrepresentation of the CBO's report:

According to the report, the CBO estimates that the average premium per person in new nongroup policies would be about 10 percent to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage under current law. More specifically, the average premiums per policy in the nongroup market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies (up from $5,500 under current law) and $15,200 for family policies (up from $13,100 under current law).

[...]

First, as the CBO report notes, the majority of nongroup enrollees (about 57 percent) would receive federal insurance subsidies, which on average would cover about two-thirds of the total premium. So for nongroup people getting subsidies, the amount they'd pay in premiums would be about 57 percent lower, on average, than what they would pay for nongroup coverage under current law.

 [...]

For the vast majority of people -- the five out of six nonelderly people who get their insurance through their employer -- the Democrats' plan would have a much smaller effect on premiums, the CBO concluded. In the small group market, employers with 50 or fewer workers, the CBO estimates the change in premiums would range from an increase of 1 percent to a decrease of 2 percent in 2016. In the large group market, premiums are projected to be zero to 3 percent lower in 2016 (relative to current law). [PolitiFact.com, 11/30/09]

Anti-Choice

Americans looked at health care reform as an opportunity to protect human life - not end it. A survey released last year found that a clear majority believed health care plans should not be mandated by the government to provide elective abortion coverage. Seeming to agree, President Obama pledged that under his plan, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." President Obama, however, hasn't lifted a finger to implement an Executive Order that he said would rectify the problem, even as his own administration moves forward with implementing other aspects of the new law. [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

The report selectively uses Congressional Budget Office estimates and other credible news reports to back up their claim that reform has yet to deliver on its promised benefits.  In the section on abortion, however, the report has nothing credible to cite.  Instead of relying on reputable and objective analysis, their legal experts are four anti-abortion groups: National Right to Life, Americans United for Life Action, the Family Research Council and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The report further alleges that Health & Human Services "hasn't lifted a finger to implement the Executive Order, even as it forges ahead aggressively with implementation of the rest of the massive new law."  That isn't as controversial as the Republicans would like to believe.  Since the individual mandate and government subsidy will not kick in for several years, the abortion funding is not at present an issue.

Popularity Factor

Three months on, however, Americans remain squarely opposed to President Obama's government takeover of health care. [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

This isn't so.

As the Washington Post's Ezra Klein notes:

Health-care reform, as you can see in the table atop this post, is comfortably popular with every demographic except for seniors. And seniors, of course, aren't opposed to government-run health care. They love their Medicare, and insofar as they have a policy concern here, it's that the Affordable Care Act will interfere with the single-payer system they rely on. [Washington Post, 6/23/10]

States Revolt

Already facing revenue shortfalls and tough economic conditions, states were especially fearful that the law would impose new costs that would cripple their budgets. After all, President Obama's government takeover relies heavily on a massive expansion of Medicaid. It wasn't a matter of whether this measure would cost the states - it was just a question of how much. Democrats, of course, predicted the tab would not be burdensome. [Republican Leader's Office, 6/23/10]

Does reform put an undue burden on states?  As we've highlighted before, it does not.  According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, states will be responsible for only 4% of the cost associated with expanding Medicaid.  Moreover, the expansion of Medicaid will mean states save money they would have otherwise spent on taking care of the uninsured.

Contrary to claims made by health reform critics, the Medicaid expansion does not pose substantial financial burdens on states. The additional state spending that will result from the expansion is only 1.25 percent of what states would have spent in the absence of health reform, but it will cover 16 million more people, which will help reduce states' costs for other programs and bring numerous other benefits to the states. The federal government will pick up most of the costs of the Medicaid expansion, overall making it a good deal for the states. [CBPP, 6/18/10]

According to Boehner's report, "many states were already taking steps to protect their citizens from its costly and unconstitutional mandates."  This is true.  Several states are contesting the constitutionality of health care reform legislation, particularly the individual mandate.  However, nearly all of the Attorneys General are Republicans, many of them currently seeking higher office and trying to solidify their political base.  The vast majority of states are not challenging the bill. Actual legal experts say that there is nothing unconstitutional about an individual mandate.  Moreover, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities once again points out, key provisions of health insurance market reform would not be possible without an individual mandate.  They conclude:

Opponents of the individual mandate make many of the same arguments that opponents of Social Security made when it was first enacted. At the time, some argued that requiring people to pay a portion of their wages into Social Security was an infringement on personal liberty and an oppressive burden that the federal government had no right to impose.

Over time, however, the vast majority of people have come to recognize the value of protecting America's seniors through Social Security. Mandatory Social Security provides critical help to people who hoped to save enough on their own for their retirement but didn't succeed in doing so or were wiped out by an unexpected catastrophic cost, disability, or the loss of employment.

Similarly, the individual mandate will protect people who are healthy now and don't think they need insurance but subsequently develop a serious illness or have a serious accident and otherwise would face exorbitant costs for care and possibly be forced into medical bankruptcy. It is an essential part of a package of health reforms that will move the nation a long way toward achieving another valued, common goal: quality, affordable health coverage for all Americans. [CBPP, 5/4/10]

Lastly, as Obama noted to Matt Lauer, several provisions of reform are actually ideas long-supported by conservatives, including the Heritage Foundation.  PolitiFact.com looked into the claim and ruled the president's statement "mostly true."

Dishonest and Misleading

The report ends with a comparison of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Republican Party's Reform Americans Can Afford Act.  The comparison is at best misleading.  On fiscal responsibility, for example, the chart reads, "CMS indicates ObamaCare will increase federal spending on health care by $311 billion over ten years, as well as increase federal spending on health care in the following decade."  What they fail to mention is that the $311 billion is an increase of barely 1 percent.  That seems like a modest price for a 34 million reduction in the number of uninsured. 

Boehner's staff oddly compares an increase in overall spending in the current bill to a projected cut in the deficit in their plan.  "The GOP plan would cut the deficit by $68 billion over the next 10 years, according to the CBO estimates."  It reads.  "The GOP plan is the only one that consistently reduces federal spending on health care over the next decades."    Of course, an increase in federal spending and a decrease in the deficit are two entirely different numbers.  (Under reform, the deficit will decrease by a significantly larger amount.)  Boehner's people are hoping Americans won't know the difference.  They'd like people to believe in the fantasy that we can somehow insure millions of Americans without it actually costing anything.  That's not possible.