WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told voters repeatedly during the health care debate that the overhaul legislation would bring down fast-rising health care costs and save them money. Now, he's hemming and hawing on that.
So far, the law he signed earlier this year hasn't had the desired effect. An analysis from Medicare's Office of the Actuary this week said that the nation's health care tab will go up — not down — through 2019 as a result of Obama's sweeping law, though the increase is modest.
Obama offered some caveats when asked in his news conference Friday about the apparent discrepancy between what he promised and what's actually happening so far. On several other topics, too, his rhetoric fell short of a full accounting.
___EDITOR'S NOTE — An occasional look at assertions by public officials and how well they adhere to the facts___A look at some of the claims at his news conference and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA: Said he never expected to extend insurance coverage to an additional 31 million people "for free." He added that "we've made huge progress" if medical inflation could be brought down to the level of overall inflation, or somewhere slightly above that.
THE FACTS: Those claims may be supported in the fine print of the plan he pitched to Congress and a skeptical public months ago. But they were rarely heard back then. "My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses and the federal government," he declared in March.
Last August he predicted: "The American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage, we're bending the cost curve, and we're getting insurance reforms."
On Friday, he conceded: "Bending the cost curve on health care is hard to do." The goal: "Slowly bring down those costs."
ALSO:
Obama: We Knew Health Costs Would Go Up
Sent from my iPhone
No comments:
Post a Comment