Can you believe that 80% of readers/viewers in the U.S. were well versed on Tom Cruise’s divorce but had no idea of the impact that the Affordable Care Act would have in their lives? And among the 20% that had read about the Act, most were uninformed about its implications. I know that many times information we receive is biased and censored forcing me to be skeptical of the source and to always read the other side of the story. While my views are biased in regards to the Affordable Care Act, given the fact that I have lived in a country, Australia, that had universal healthcare and I believe in it, some of the arguments we are hearing are predicated on lies. The Affordable Care Act, in its entirety, is a HUGE victory for seniors, strengthening Medicare, improving community long-term care, providing additional transparency protections against abuse and neglect and lowering costs of medications, among others.
However, what we are hearing during this election year is that the Act that was formulated and approved by Congress, now called Obamacare, will kill 800,000 jobs, is bad for the economy and worse it is a federal takeover. Recently, Congress spent $50 million of our taxpayer’s money drafting a bill to roll back the Act. But let us examine these statements to get to the bottom of the arguments.
According to the Congressional Budget Office 800,000 workers will now retire because they will have healthcare insurance. I assume that those jobs will then be open to others who are seeking employment. So in a sense, it is not a loss of jobs but perhaps the creation of new job opportunities. Let’s face the fact that we cannot afford to continue with the spiraling healthcare costs. In the last three months my husband has had four MRIs, each costing around $4,000 each. He is in perfect health but doctors insist that to be sure nothing has changed he must have another one. Reigning in the growth of healthcare costs is one of the priorities of the Act. Moving dollars away from expensive fee for service Medicare is good for the economy. Experts have concluded that after 10 years of the Act our healthcare system will cost half a trillion dollars less than today. The last argument that this is a federal takeover is a complete undiluted lie. Would you say that delivering 30 million new customers to private insurance companies is a federal takeover? Liberals in fact agree that the Act should have created a more robust public option but that did not pass muster with the strong lobbying arm of the private insurance companies. Seven other states, including Massachusetts, have in the past passed laws offering coverage to all. All but one has failed because the law did not mandate that everyone must be covered. Only Massachusetts mandated that and was the only one that became succesful.
My advice to you is that you must seek the truth, always consider the source of information and use common sense to make your own conclusions. Be skeptical of all you read and hear.