Originally published September 24 2015
The Obamacare fact check that no "fact checker" website dare report
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) When campaigning in 2008 for what would become his first term in office, Senator Barack Obama promised that his health care reform plan, which would eventually pass and be dubbed "Obamacare", would lower overall health insurance premiums for Americans by an average of $2,500 a year.
As noted in this video, Obama repeatedly made this promise. However, as they say in politics, that was then.
Seven years later and a full five years after the "Affordable" Care Act was enacted with only Democrats voting for it, the fallacy of Obama's promise is extremely obvious to any so-called mainstream media "fact checker" website that would dare to actually look into it.
Leave it to those in alternative media to do the heavy lifting.
As reported by Liberty Blitzkreig, little of what Obama and the Democrats promised regarding the Affordable Care Act has turned out to be accurate, so "we shouldn't be surprised this is also the case when it comes to his so-called 'signature achievement.'"
According to Investor's Business Daily, insurance premiums this year alone have climbed 4.2 percent for family plans, well above the 3 percent rise in 2013, reports the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In all, since Obama was campaigning in 2008, premiums have risen by $4,865. Coverage for many families is worse because deductibles have also risen dramatically.
Somehow, though, the Obama administration cheered the news, Investor's Business Daily reported, saying that the figures showed that premium hikes were continuing to slow down.
Purposefully misleading
Since 2006, Investor's Business Daily noted, the average annual increase in family plans has been 4.9 percent, which is down from about 10 percent a year from 1999 to 2005.
However, as the above video demonstrates, Obama didn't promise slower rate growth. He promised his plan would cut premiums, period. That hasn't happened.
"We will start," Obama said back in 2008, "by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family."
He wasn't talking about government-subsidized insurance or expanding Medicaid or anything similar. He was specifically focused on employer-provided health care. For "people who already have insurance, and the employers who are providing it," he said at one campaign event, "we will work to lower your premiums by up to $2,500 per family."
Does it seem like he was talking about slower rates of premium increase? Not really; on CNN, he said, "We're going to reduce the costs an average of $2,500."
Investor's Business Daily further noted:
Every time the subject came up, he promised to cut premiums, not slow the rate of increase.
If what he meant was "we're going to keep the rate of increase in premiums about where it's been for several years now," he was being purposefully misleading.
Deductibles rising faster than wages
Then again, even if he never meant what he was saying, he can't even claim credit for the slowdown in rate increases. The trend actually started in 2006, before Obama took office by a couple of years and still longer before Obamacare took effect.
Moreover, the continued trend of modest increases has been due in large part to the shift in the employer-provided coverage market toward health savings account-type plans; those hit the market in 2005.
As for deductibles, those out-of-pocket expenses that insurance plans don't cover, have doubled in less than a decade, according to AllGov.
Also quoting a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the yearly average for deductibles went from $900 in 2010, the first year of Obamacare, to more than $1,300 this year.
The average deductible for small business employees is even higher at $1,800 per year. Further, the foundation noted that about 20 percent of all workers are paying $2,000 per year, or more than double the average cost just five years ago.
Adding insult to injury, the increases in deductibles have soared past wage increases over the same period.
Sources include:
YouTube.com
LibertyBlitzkrieg.com
News.Investors.com
AlternativeNews.com
AllGov.com
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