President Obama's propaganda machine to indoctrinate Americans about the benefits of his health care reform law has relied on the "Big Lie" technique. The president has repeated his fabrications at every opportunity counting on the echo chamber in the media to broadcast the fallacies.
Left unchallenged, the misinformation has become accepted fact. Even well-informed people refuse to believe the convincing evidence about the falsehoods perpetuated by the administration. The blame rests with the media, which has failed its duty to fact-check the president.
Americans will soon learn the hard way about the president's deception. Once the law's health insurance mandate goes into affect in 2014, most people will be shocked by the reality of Obama Care. The president hopes Americans have short memories about his promises.
Here are the president's three biggest whoppers about the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010:
"If you like your (current health care) plan, you can keep it."
There is absolutely no guarantee and it depends entirely on what your employer does. Companies will have a disincentive to offer health insurance. Employers who decide to forgo offering health insurance will have to pay a tax of $2,000, which is far less than what it costs most major firms to provide health care benefits to each employee.
Take the example of Southwest Airlines. Under Obama Care, the company would expect to pay $414 million annually to provide health care to its employees or it could drop coverage and fork over $111 million in taxes. The financial discrepancy will encourage firms to end employee plans.
House Republicans released a study in May that found 71 of the 100 Fortune companies it surveyed could save $28.6 billion by eliminating health care plans and paying the $2,000 government tax.
No wonder a recent McKinsey and Co. report found 30 to 50 percent of current employers would dump company-sponsored health plans by 2014 when the mandate goes into effect.
The Congressional Budget Office had even worse news. It found as many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage under what it calls a "worse case scenario."
Even that scenario may be too rosy. Starting in 2018, a 40 percent excise tax will be slapped on taxpayers who are covered by a high-cost health insurance plan, the so called "Cadillac"coverage offered by many large companies.
Under any scenario, your current health care coverage will not be the same that it is today. That is a guarantee.
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
That assumes your doctor will not opt out of Obama Care. A survey conducted by the non-partisan Doctor Patient Medical Association reported that 83 percent of doctors have considered leaving their current practice over the new health care law.
The disturbing finding comes at a time when the medical profession is forecasting severe shortages of doctors to meet the new demands for health care. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimates the deficit could be 50 percent worse in 2015 than originally forecast.
A new study published in the journal Health Affairs predicts 16 million people will be added to the rolls of Medicaid in 2014. Medicaid, funded jointly by the federal government and states, serves low-income families. Under Obama Care, millions without insurance today will wind up on Medicaid.
However, the study documents that nearly one-third of doctors today are not accepting new Medicaid patients. This will exacerbate the looming issue of doctor shortages. If the AAMC estimates prove correct, it could mean a scarcity of 91,500 doctors nationwide.
A recent report from the Heritage Foundation says Obama Care will "accelerate the decline in doctor-owned private practices because more physicians will only accept patients who can pay cash." The reason is Obama Care significantly reduces reimbursements to doctors for many patient services.
Chances are good that your doctor will not accept the lower reimbursements. Many physicians only will cater to people who can afford to pay for their own care or they will leave medicine.
"Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase."
Of all the preposterous claims, this one earns the booby prize for crass dishonesty.
To fund health care, the new law creates 19 new types of taxes and fees over the next decade to raise $500 billion. The billions will be paid by businesses and individuals. According to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, about 73 million taxpayers earning less than $200,000 annually will be saddled with tax increases.
This month the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that nearly six million Americans, mostly middle class, will face tax penalties for failing to carry health insurance coverage once the individual mandate takes effect in 2014.
Even these new taxes will likely fall short of the funding requirements. The original price tag for Obama Care was $944 billion over ten years. In May, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the cost over the next ten years at $1.856 trillion, about $912 billion more than the original forecast.
Obama Care cannot be paid for without taxing Americans of every economic level.
How could the president of the United States think Americans are so gullible?
For Barrack Obama, the answer to that question is obvious. When you have a self-inflated view of your own intelligence, you are convinced everyone else can be easily duped.
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