# Oops. Looks like we were lied to about Obamacare after all. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 29, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534 "2013-10-29T07:22:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 51
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1001 "2013-11-08T20:17:28Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Well you pretty much demonstrated if not outright conceded that Obama’s statement was untrue, so where else is there to go? Since nothing I posted on that subject was something I hadn’t already said not more than a page back, I had the idea you were, I don’t know, trying to explore some idea from a different angle or offer something new to the thread. But, I guess you were just trying to establish 0bAma l13z! Ok. Here’s a cookie. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1002 "2013-11-08T21:12:19Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > No shit. But, also from the second link:Also:So, again, no shit. But premiums are lower now - apparently not every one, but on the whole. You realize they are saying that the premiums are lower than what was projected for the ACA plans…not as compared to plans that people currently have…and are losing. So, they are saying that the plans being offered on the the exchange are cheaper than they thought they would be…not cheaper than current non-ACA plans. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1003 "2013-11-08T21:15:12Z")
> [@Trom](#): > > I posted a link to a study that showed many people that buy their own insurance are now facing higher premiums. You post a link that explicitly says the same. What the fuck? Do you know what “average” means? Your link says that premiums went up on average 41%. Mine says they have gone down 16%. How can they “explicitly say the same thing”? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1004 "2013-11-08T21:15:45Z")
The most specific evidence presented so far in this thread–the NH Department of Health study–says that, on average, the post-subsidy premium for even individual market plans is indeed lower under the ACA. Obviously, increased price of premiums pre-subsidy is relevant to the cost of the ACA. But in terms of the impact on an individual’s out-of-pocket insurance costs, the post-subsidy premium is the relevant measure. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1005 "2013-11-08T21:52:14Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The most specific evidence presented so far in this thread–the NH Department of Health study–says that, on average, the post-subsidy premium for even individual market plans is indeed lower under the ACA. > > Obviously, increased price of premiums pre-subsidy is relevant to the cost of the ACA. But in terms of the impact on an individual’s out-of-pocket insurance costs, the post-subsidy premium is the relevant measure. That’s the equivalent of saying that the price of food has gone down for people using food stamps. It doesn’t make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1006 "2013-11-08T21:57:34Z")
So if I complain that my new insurance premium is higher, but I’m actually paying less after the subsidy, you’d be very sympathetic to me and count me as a victim of the cruel tyrant Obama? That’s what doesn’t make any sense. We obviously care about the price of insurance for more than one reason. But if the reason we’re discussing is the impact on household budgets, it doesn’t make any sense to ignore the subsidies. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1007 "2013-11-08T22:01:19Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > For those blasting governmental incompetence in general, or Obama’s specifically: Where is your indignation toward the web developers entrusted (and well-paid) to get the job done? Is it your experience that, when you bungle a job, you get to blame the \*client \*for their incompetence in \*managing \*you? My employer sure would. We employ vendors all the time, and the project manager is expected to hold them accountable through strong monitoring mechanisms–e.g., detailed specs, phases of deliverables that include test results, timely checkpoints detailing specific results, and so on. If you engage a vendor, that’s no different than employing your own staff. Where I work, if a project went as badly as this one, “But the vendors didn’t deliver!” would not be an acceptable excuse. You’re expected to manage the vendor. Obama’s major fuck-up was not building a team with the requisite competencies to do this. [The Post did a good write-up on this:](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/challenges-have-dogged-obamas-health-plan-since-2010/2013/11/02/453fba42-426b-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html) > [@](#): > > In May 2010, two months after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aides were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, and Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, had just received a pointed four-page memo from a trusted outside health adviser. It warned that no one in the administration was “up to the task” of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies of translating the 2,000-page statute into reality. \ In the end, the economic team never had a chance: The president had already made up his mind, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid. Obama wanted his health policy team — led by Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform — to be in charge of the law’s arduous implementation. \ Three and a half years later, such insularity — in that decision and others that would follow — has emerged as a central factor in the disastrous rollout of the new federal health insurance marketplace, casting doubt on the administration’s capacity to carry out such a complex undertaking. > > “They were running the biggest start-up in the world, and they didn’t have anyone who had run a start-up, or even run a business,” said David Cutler, a Harvard professor and health adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, who was not the individual who provided the memo to The Washington Post but confirmed he was the author. “It’s very hard to think of a situation where the people best at getting legislation passed are best at implementing it. They are a different set of skills.” > > **The White House’s leadership of the immense project — building new health insurance marketplaces for an estimated 24 million Americans without coverage — is one of several key reasons that the president’s signature domestic policy achievement has become a self-inflicted injury for the administration.** Emphasis added. This was a failure of leadership and a major fuck-up. It’s the very definition of incompetency. Where I work, people would be fired, probably especially if they tried to blame the vendors. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1008 "2013-11-08T22:02:06Z")
Those subsidies didn’t just fall out of the sky. They come out of someone’s pocket. The bigger point is that ACA is supposed to bring down the cost of insurance for families…not just those with subsidies. Remember bending the cost curve and all that? Just because someone pays less due to a subsidy does not mean that the plans are cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1009 "2013-11-08T22:04:24Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > Those subsidies didn’t just fall out of the sky. They come out of someone’s pocket. The bigger point is that ACA is supposed to bring down the cost of insurance for families…not just those with subsidies. Remember bending the cost curve and all that? > > Just because someone pays less due to a subsidy does not mean that the plans are cheaper. You might try re-reading the post you’re criticizing, in which I make this very point. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1010 "2013-11-08T22:56:55Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > What the fuck? Do you know what “average” means? Your link says that premiums went up on average 41%. Mine says they have gone down 16%. How can they “explicitly say the same thing”? No, yours doesn’t say “they have gone down 16%”. They say “they have gone up, quite a bit, but we expected they would go up more.”. Which is quite a bit different, you know. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1011 "2013-11-08T23:26:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You might try re-reading the post you’re criticizing, in which I make this very point. That’s hardly the point you are making. The subsidies reduce the price of policies for some on the backs of others. So, a lot of households will have an increase in out-of-pocket costs for insurance. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1012 "2013-11-08T23:34:26Z")
Remember, **Richard** , always ask **Yorick** what your point is before you start talking about what your point is. Think of it as a pro-tip. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1013 "2013-11-08T23:46:50Z")
> [@yorick73](#): > > The bigger point is that ACA is supposed to bring down the cost of insurance for families…not just those with subsidies. Right now, [Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies](http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148). And whenever those people go bankrupt, the cost of writting off those bills is socialized to everyone else, including me. Suppose a person is perfectly happy with their health care, despite it having an annual limit, or a lifetime limit, or a limit of coverage to healthy people. Someone might be perfectly happy with that insurance because they are currently healthy and not bouncing anywhere near the limits. But I’m _not_ happy because of the enormous economic inefficiency, unpleasantness, and even suffering that comes from funding health care by overcharging everyone who doesn’t go bankrupt. This is why requiring people, who can afford it, to take out real insurance helps families like mine. It will also help the families of affluent people, who now have bad insurance, and get a catastrophic illness. It will also help people who wouldn’t want to go bankrupt even if it was in their financial benefit. But, yea, there is no free lunch. Every change has winners and losers. I know that, you know it, and surely you know politicians can’t be elected it they admit it to any great degree. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1014 "2013-11-09T00:44:01Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > No, yours doesn’t say “they have gone down 16%”. They say “they have gone up, quite a bit, but we expected they would go up more.”. Which is quite a bit different, you know. Please tell me.where I can find that quote, or even a paraphrase, in that report. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1015 "2013-11-09T01:07:10Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > A cheek swab, but it’s not a very new method. What cheek swab? Conducted by whom? When did I consent to that? In clause MCLLVI (b) (3) (A) (1) of the policy? Does it detect nicotine? I use an e-cigarette, and the question very clearly asked if I had used “tobacco” in the last six months. I can honestly answer that I do not use tobacco in any form. No fraud present. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1016 "2013-11-09T01:44:10Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Please tell me.where I can find that quote, or even a paraphrase, in that report. From your link: CBO’s projected premium levels In March 2012, CBO projected an average family premium for the second-lowest-cost silver plan of $15,400 in 2016. This family premium is equivalent to an individual premium of $5,700 in 2016. CBO projected that private insurance premiums would increase by 5.5 percent per year from 2014 to 2016, so its estimate for 2014 would be lower by that amount. In addition, the Affordable Care Act covers the cost of high-risk enrollees through 2016, but it provides greater relief in 2014 than in 2016. This reinsurance will lower premiums by more in 2014 than in 2016. Taking the estimate of $5,700 in 2016, trending it backward by 5.5 percent per year, and accounting for greater reinsurance in 2014 yields an estimate of $4,700 in 2014. Note: everything talks about “lower than projected”. Not “lower than current”. To wit: CBO thinks that individual premium for the second-lowest-cost silver plan in 2016 will be $5,700. In 2010, average individual premium across US for individual policies [was $2,580](http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/individual-premiums/). So - CBO projected a HUGE increase. Then it got you all happy telling you that maybe the increase will be slightly less. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1017 "2013-11-09T02:07:12Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > But, yea, there is no free lunch. Every change has winners and losers. I know that, you know it, and surely you know politicians can’t be elected it they admit it to any great degree. That is the salient point. With ACA the politicians lied big and now the blowback may be just as big. The point is that the ACA would not have passed if politicians had been honest. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1018 "2013-11-09T02:15:59Z")
Terr, are you asserting that health insurance premiums usually stay constant? It kinda seems that way. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1019 "2013-11-09T02:26:58Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > In 2010, average individual premium across US for individual policies [was $2,580](http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/individual-premiums/). This is less than the lowest of the three plans our daughter’s college offers for _students_ – in other words, young people with a low risk of serious heath problems. If average age adults are, or were in 2010, paying only $2,580 in the individual market, these average plans must be quite poor ones, with exclusions for preexisting conditions, and maximums so the insurance company doesn’t pay for catastrophes, resulting in the cost of such care being socialized. [US health spending for the average person is well over $8,000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_(PPP)_per_capita). I don’t see how you can expect the average adult with income too high for a subsidy to pay just $2,580 plus copays. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534/1020 "2013-11-09T02:43:34Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Terr, are you asserting that health insurance premiums usually stay constant? It kinda seems that way. I think that, once again, you’ve completely missed the point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534.md?page=50) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oops-looks-like-we-were-lied-to-about-obamacare-after-all/672534.md?page=52)