NY Times blatantly lies about costs of health insurance under Obamacare

Friday, July 26, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: New York, Obamacare, insurance premiums

(NaturalNews) A well-known mainstream media dinosaur has been caught yet again spreading lies about the supposed "benefits" of Obamacare, this time claiming that individual health insurance premiums will drop by up to half once the mandate comes into full effect. But the deceptive report, which appeared recently in The New York Times (NYT), has already been exposed as a complete fraud with fabricated numbers, false price comparisons, and flat-out lies that make it seem as though health insurance rates will drop for everyone when they most definitely will not.

The truth of the matter is that health insurance premiums will only drop for some people who live in a select few areas where insurance rates are already insanely high, such as in New York City where policies enacted back in the early 1990s caused individual health insurance plans to skyrocket to unsustainably high levels. Yes, in those areas, average health insurance premiums will likely drop some as a result of Obamacare because they are currently unrealistically high. But for everyone else in New York state, and throughout the rest of the country for that matter, premiums will rise dramatically because of Obamacare.

In case you missed the story, the NYT recently ran a front-page piece praising Obamacare as the solution to the years-old problem of high insurance premiums in New York. The expected new rates for 2014 under Obamacare, which were recently approved by insurance regulators, will reportedly be as much as 50 percent lower than current premiums -- the NYT claims health insurance premiums are currently as high as $1,000 per month for individuals in New York City.

New Yorkers currently pay high health insurance premiums because of Obamacare-esque policies enacted back in 1992

As good as this might sound, however, the same NYT piece fails to explain to its readers why insurance premiums are currently as high as they are in New York City. According to Avik Roy from the National Review, who recently investigated the paper's claims further, policies enacted back in 1992 by former New York Governor Mario Cuomo are the reason why health insurance premiums are high for New Yorkers -- and believe it or not, these policies very closely resemble those now being forced on the entire U.S. through Obamacare.

"In July of [1992], Gov. Cuomo signed into law the most draconian health insurance regulations drafted in recent times," writes Roy in his detailed analysis, which was published by Forbes. "Within four years, these changes resulted in a mass exodus of health insurers from the individual market ... Only the sickest people, who need the insurance, stay in the pool, leading prices to go up and up in an adverse selection death spiral."

So naturally, any new policy that brings back all the people who left the insurance market due to Cuomo's insane healthcare policies -- in this case, the Obamacare individual mandate -- is going to drive prices back down some, which is what the NYT is hyping as "evidence" that Obamacare will be beneficial for New Yorkers. But the NYT piece fails to explain that health insurance premiums were far lower for New Yorkers prior to Cuomo's policies, and that they will still be higher, on average, under Obamacare. The piece also fails to evaluate how Obamacare will affect almost every other state in the country, nearly all of which currently have far lower premiums than what New Yorkers pay.

"In the vast majority of states, Obamacare has the net effect of raising premiums by a lot, which has given rise to the term 'rate shock,'" adds Roy. "In California, for example, a healthy 40-year-old today can pay $94 per month in the individual market; that rises to $234 a month under Obamacare: an increase of 149 percent."

Be sure to read Roy's full analysis here to avoid being hoodwinked by the lies of the NYT and the Obama administration concerning Obamacare:
http://www.forbes.com

Sources for this article include:

http://nationalreview.com

http://www.nationalreview.com

http://www.forbes.com