Fact checkers: Obama is lying about health care

USA Today caught Obama telling three fibs about health care, such as falsely claiming that “under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

Shikha Dalmia lists “Obama’s Top 5 Health-Care Lies” in Forbes Magazine.

“Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage. . .

“Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits. . .

“Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector. .

“Lie Four: A public plan won’t be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly. . .

“Lie Five: Patients don’t have to fear rationing. . .”

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has criticized provisions of ObamaCare for mandating racial preferences and set-asides and affirmative action that may well be unconstitutional. 

“ObamaCare” also contains preferences for illegal aliens, who are exempt from its taxes and penalties (even though some will access its benefits).

ObamaCare would reinforce the worst features of the status quo, while exploding health-care costs, say Washington Post columnists.  One of Obama’s own advisers says the Obama Administration’s health-care plan will harm people with insurance while raising their taxes. 

Fran Smith lists a dozen constructive health-care reforms that could make health cheaper and more widely available — none of which Obama has even considered.

In the Wall Street Journal, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey lists another 8 obvious and long overdue health-care reforms that Obama has refused to consider that would make health-care cheaper and expand access to health-care, such as:

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

ObamaCare will take away 5 important freedoms, notes a CNN commentary. It will also destroy many affordable health-care plans while breaking Obama’s campaign promises.

The Heritage Foundation and the American Spectator list what they think are the “Top Ten Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America,” noting that “millions will lose their current insurance,” those who won’t will probably pay “more in premiums,” and small business owners will pay “higher taxes” than in “Europe,” and that Obamacare will “increase the deficit” and could lead to “taxpayer-funded abortions” and “rationing.”