Joe Biden is defending the Affordable Care Act, challenging not just President Trump but also some Democrats who want to replace the current system with a fully government-run model. Biden, in Iowa, also blasted President Trump's character. (July 16) AP, AP
Opinion: Conservatives didn't create our 'unjust and inefficient' health-care system. You built that, Democrats.
"If you like your health care plan, your employer-based plan, you can keep it,” Joe Biden said at a campaign stop. “If you like your private insurance, you can keep it."
No, you’re not reading a decade-old column. This quote wasn’t unearthed from 2008 or even 2012. Biden said it this week to an AARP gathering in Des Moines.
Of course, President Barack Obama made the same promise ad nauseam when selling his health-care reform bill, both before and after its passage with only Democrat votes. Even PolitiFact, hardly a conservative enterprise, named "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" as the “Lie of the Year” in 2013.
Fool voters once, shame on the politician. Fool voters twice, shame on all of us.
Plans were canceled, costs increased
Most Americans didn’t need a media fact-check to reveal that the Obama-Biden administration repeatedly lied about their health-care reform law. Voters only had to glance at their pay stubs and credit card bills to know the score.
At the end of 2013, the Associated Press reported that at least 4.7 million Americans received cancellation notices that year for those health care plans they liked. Across age groups and household types, the misnamed Affordable Care Act raised premiums by about 60%.
(Please note that these effects were well before that Trump fellow moved into the Oval Office.)
As PolitiFact noted, “This was another example of reality catching up to the president’sunfulfillable blanket promise that ‘you can keep your plan.’” And yet, Biden is rolling out the lie again.
If they fixed it, why are they complaining?
It seems odd that the vice president who supposedly fixed our broken health-care system less than a decade ago is so disappointed by the system he replaced it with. But Biden isn’t the only Democrat bashing the post-Obamacare mess.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg admits the obvious on his campaign website: “the health care system we have today is both unjust and inefficient.” Sen. Kamala Harris complains on that “the costs of health insurance, surprise bills, and prescription drugs are straining budgets and bankrupting families.”
“Today, more than 30 million Americans still don’t have health insurance and even more are underinsured,” Sen. Bernie Sanders fumes. “Even for those with insurance, costs are so high that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States.”
While Biden wants to tweak the existing system, candidates like Harris and Sanders want to recreate it whole. They, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, proudly raised their hands when asked in their debates if they would abolish private insurance plans.
How are we supposed to pay for that?
When asked how a nation more than $22 trillion in debt can pay for a scheme like Medicare for All, they’ve been a little cagier.
To his credit, Sanders admitted that taxes would go up for the middle class. He also revealed this week that the approximate cost for SandersCare would be “somewhere between $30 trillion and $40 trillion over a 10-year period.”
This makes Biden's planned budget of $750 billion over a decade – about three-quarters the cost of Obamacare – look like a steal.
Republicans have nipped at the edges of the ACA but have fallen far short of repealing or replacing the controversial legislation. No GOP plans have garnered support, especially since Sen. John McCain was the deciding vote to keep Obamacare in place.
But conservatives didn’t create the “unjust and inefficient” system being denounced by candidates today. You built that, Democrats.
Obama and Biden’s promise that government can create a better health-care system than the free market has obviously been a disappointment. Taxpayers would be unwise to let them try again.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Republic and azcentral.com. Follow him on Twitter at @exjon.
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