President’s assurance that you can keep your own doctor goes the way of the equally misleading notion that you can keep your health insurance policy
By Dave Andrusko
To its credit, Gallup picked up on a sentence in a story in POLITICO and ran with it. Specifically, according to POLITICO, “The president didn’t say ‘Obamacare’ once during his nearly hour-long news conference last week, while he referred to the ‘Affordable Care Act’ a dozen times.”
Frank Newport, the Editor-in-Chief of Gallup, writes today (In Polling Matters) that
“It is likely that White House
strategists developed the new approach — perhaps based on internal
polling — under the assumption that the more formal name ‘Affordable
Care Act’ would help in the current toxic environment of the negative
publicity associated with the troubled rollout of the healthcare
exchanges. Additionally, The White House may think that, at this
juncture, it is best not to directly reinforce Obama’s association with
the law.”
To test that out, Gallup tried four different ways of describing
ObamaCare/Affordable Care Act. While no way of describing it secured
majority support [!], “Only mentioning the Affordable Care Act yields
the highest support (45%), while only mentioning Obamacare yields the
lowest support (38%).” In other words merely mentioning the President’s
name diminishes support. Thus avoiding “ObamaCare” in favor of the
“Affordable Care Act” is (in Newport’s opinion) part of “a branding
strategy.”But that’s only part of today’s round of bad news for the President.
Everyone who followed the debate over ObamaCare knew that it was patently untrue (contrary to what the President kept promising) that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” That this was not true has been proven by the events of the last month.
But the second biggest myth (not counting the counter-intuitive notion that overall costs would not go up) was that you and I could keep our own doctors. (And, yes, this was this morning’s discussion point over coffee at the Andrusko household.) Here’s how the Washington Post began its account today:
“As Americans have begun shopping for
health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that
insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order
to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated
hospitals.
“The Obama administration made it a
priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online
marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way
that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating
networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed
to.
“The decisions have provoked a
backlash. In one closely watched case, Seattle Children’s Hospital has
filed suit against Washington’s insurance commissioner after a number of
insurers kept it out of their provider networks. ‘It is unprecedented
in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Children’s,’
said Sandy Melzer, senior vice president.
“The result, some argue, is a
two-tiered system of health care: Many of the people who buy health
plans on the exchanges have fewer hospitals and doctors to choose from
than those with coverage through their employers.
“A number of the nation’s top
hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los
Angeles, and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis —
are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.”
“Many doctors are disturbed that
they’ll be paid less – often a lot less – to care for the millions of
patients who are projected to buy coverage through the health law’s new
insurance marketplaces.”
“A fascinating number in Wednesday’s
CBS poll is that only 7% of the American public want ObamaCare ‘kept in
place.’ A full 93% either believe that changes are needed to the law
(48%) or want a full repeal (43%).”
One other item—the cover of TIME
magazine, dated December 2. The design is of a broken pill
(“Obama/Care”) with the headline, “Broken Promise—What it means for this
Presidency” followed by subhead, “Plus what it means for your Health
Care.”
TIME’s Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs proceeds to wrap the President’s
knuckles a good one, questioning what is the fate of his second term
with this albatross (my word) around his neck.Source: NRLC News
No comments:
Post a Comment