These 5 Scary Obamacare Predictions Were Dead Wrong

It’s been exactly one year since the Republican’s shutdown the US federal government in a delusional attempt to repeal and destroy Obamacare. They failed and now a year later we can all see that despite their howls of protest the biggest thing they really feared about Obamacare was never its failure but rather its success. The fact that Obamacare would be a success terrified right-wing conservatives and the facts since have proven without a doubt that their fears were not unfounded.

Faux News lives beneath a “Reality Distortion Field’ OR they lie on purpose

Ever since the Affordable Care Act passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama in 2010, Republican’s and their news mouthpiece Faux News have been predicting it would be a trainwreck and ruin America. Even as Obamacare succeeded beyond its supporters wildest expectations the haters stuck to their talking points even as facts disproved their theories.

Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post wrote an excellent article yesterday that outlined some of the scariest predictions made by Republican Senators, members of Congress, Fox News and assorted right-wing nutbars and wackos. It’s an excellent summary of the the predictions and just how wrong they were. Here are extended excerpts from Jeffrey Young’s article:

1. Prediction: No One Is Going To Pay For Health Insurance
    What happened: Just About Everyone Paid For Health Insurance.

After more than 8 million Americans signed up for health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges during the initial enrollment, despite the terrible website rollout problems, conservatives pivoted to a new theory that “no one was gonna pay for it”.  As enrollment numbers went up and up they along with Faux News asked repeatedly “but, how many have paid?” On and on it went.

Convinced they had a winning argument Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee convened a hearing designed to prove their point. They invited health insurance company executives to testify. To their absolute astonishment and horror their arguments again turned out to be terribly wrong. The health insurance executives lined up to testify that up to 90% of enrollees had paid their premiums. Guess what?  No more committee meetings after that!

2. Prediction: Premiums Are Going To Skyrocket!!
    What happened: Premiums Went Up A Smidge.

Maybe the loudest, most persistent prediction was that health insurance prices would go through the roof next year because so many sick people would sign up, and so few young people, that insurers would have to jack up prices -- maybe even by as much as 300 percent! And then a "death spiral" would begin and undermine the whole industry!  Faux News was was predicting Health insurance prices were going to double -- triple even. Trainwreck!

But wait – according to PricewaterhouseCoopers the average premium increase on the exchanges next year will be 6 percent. (That's less than 300 percent, if you don't have a calculator handy.) That doesn't seem so bad, and is lower than typical increases for individual insurance policies before Obamacare. Health insurance premiums went up an average of 10% a year in the three years before the Affordable Care Act was enacted.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private think tank, conducted the study of rate increases and released their report in June, 2014. It was the first time a national analysis of premium rates and increases had been conducted in part because insurers were not required to file rate increases before the ACA, They concluded that rate increases prior to Obamacare were very volatile and the trend was towards double-digit increases.

3. Prediction: Obamacare Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Young People    Since Moms Joined Facebook
What Happened: A Lot Of Young People Are Insured, Pleasing Moms Everywhere.

Young adults were urged to "burn their Obamacare cards" by right-wing outfits trying to disrupt Affordable Care Act implementation. Their argument: Obamacare is a bad deal for 20-somethings because they'd be paying a ton just so old people and sick people could go to the doctor.

Millennials were better off paying the fine for violating the law's individual mandate than buying health insurance. And anyway, these "young invincibles" didn't even want health insurance (contrary to what they actually said in polls, but whatever).

Obamacare was designed to "screw" young adults, they were told. But in 2010, the law started allowing people to stay on their parents' health insurance policies until they turn 26, and in 2014 it began offering subsidized coverage to people with low and moderate incomes, which includes lots of young people just starting their careers. Again, the horror story predictions were dead wrong.  The result:

The Uninsured Rate Among 19-25 year olds

4. Prediction: Obamacare Is INCREASING The Uninsured Rate!
    What happened: Obamacare DECREASED The Uninsured Rate.

Considering that the Affordable Care Act will spend about $1 trillion over a decade to subsidize health benefits and requires most people to get covered, this idea seems just plain silly. But that hasn't stopped politicians and others from expressing it aloud! House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) himself got in on the action, saying in March there was a "net loss of people with health insurance." Whoa if true.

All available evidence shows that the uninsured rate is down -- way down. According to Gallup, it hasn't been this low since the 1990s. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Harvard School of Public Health concluded in a New England Journal of Medicine article that 10.3 million more people have health insurance this year than did last year.

5. Prediction: Obamacare Will Destroy The Private Health Insurance Industry
    What happened: Health Insurance Companies Got A Lot Of New Business.

A big part of this claim rests on exploiting public confusion about what "Obamacare" is, and ignoring the fact that private health insurance is what's being sold on the exchanges. Another component of this prediction was that the Affordable Care Act lays too many regulations on health insurers. It’s true – the ACA does have lots of regulations like the the prohibition against rejecting customers with pre-existing conditions and the mandate for a guaranteed minimum benefits package.

"Look at what we've done to eviscerate the U.S. health insurance industry," Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said on FOX News in April. Yes, look. After the first enrollment period brought in more than 7 million paying customers and the promise of millions more in the future, health insurance companies grew more confident.

How confident? There will be 248 more health insurance plans available on the exchanges for 2015 than there were this year, a net increase of 25 percent  compared to the first enrollment period.

It’s a done deal and even diehard GOP’ers repeal dreams are fantasy

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