Lies of Obamacare

I posted Steve Tobak’s Fox Business column on the lies of Obamacare in our Picks a few weeks ago, but I want to pause over it and add it to this series. Tobak describes himself as a Silicon Valley-based strategy consultant and former senior executive of the technology industry. He calls his column “Lies, damn lies and Obamacare.” Tobak writes:

Last week I was informed by the agent who handles my firm’s health-care insurance that, come 2014, our group plan will be cancelled and replaced with an ObamaCare plan.

Never mind that President Obama, his spokespeople, and Democratic Congressional leaders all stated over and over that Americans happy with their health-care plans would be able to keep them. Never mind that none of that was true.

Now those same leaders – not to mention all sorts of political talking heads – are saying that the only plans being cancelled are subpar plans that don’t meet the minimum requirements of ObamaCare. They’re saying the cancellations will only affect a small percentage of individual plans.

None of that is true, either.

Our plan is a small business (2-50 employees) group PPO plan with low deductibles, out-of-network coverage, the whole nine yards. Read my lips: it’s not a subpar plan. And you know what it’s being replaced by? An EPO plan – a new designation with no out-of-network coverage at far higher premiums with a fraction of the number of doctors.

Here’s the thing. I’ve had PPO health-care coverage for decades. I don’t want to get into personal details here, but suffice to say that, without out-of-network coverage, I probably would have lost a loved one many years ago.

As I understand it, under ObamaCare, Blue Shield of California will no longer be offering PPO plans in quite a few California counties such as Alameda, which includes Oakland and Berkeley. Let me tell you: that’s a very big deal that will impact a lot of people.

When it comes to ObamaCare, everyone’s mincing words these days. They’re afraid to say our leaders lied. And they’re afraid to say they’re still lying. That’s entirely understandable. They want to be accurate. They want to be truthful. They want to be honest. Well thank God somebody does. Nobody in Washington seems to.

Well, here’s how I see it. It sure looks to me as if the President of the United States, members of his administration, and Democratic Congressional leaders didn’t just lie. I think they intentionally perverted the truth. And I think they did it because, if they didn’t, they knew the bill wouldn’t pass through Congress….

Whole thing (and the whole thing is very much worth reading) here.