Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.Can you imagine President Bush making a gaffe like that and the reaction that would have gotten from the press?
Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don't look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.
Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that's how it works.
Visiting a Cleveland suburb this week, the president described how individuals and small businesses will be able to buy coverage in a new kind of health insurance marketplace, gaining the same strength in numbers that federal employees have.
"You'll be able to buy in, or a small business will be able to buy into this pool," Obama said. "And that will lower rates, it's estimated, by up to 14 to 20 percent over what you're currently getting. That's money out of pocket."
And that's not all.
Obama asked his audience for a show of hands from people with employer-provided coverage, what most Americans have.
"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent," said the president, "which means they could give you a raise."
A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.
It could be a long wait.
There's nothing about Obamacare that will reduce costs. Measures that would actually have an impact on costs, such as tort reform or sales of policies across state lines, are not included in the Obamacare bill. Obamacare is about government control of your health care and by extension your life. Nothing about that will reduce costs.
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