Media Slowly Turn Against Obamacare

Media Slowly Turn Against Obamacare
By Michael Reagan

You may notice I have an extra spring in my step today. And why wouldn’t I? The Associated Press, of all people, has ruled that my warnings regarding Obamacare are credible.

It would have been nice if AP had joined the real world before the 2012 election, but better late than never.

You may recall that — aside from the basic unconstitutionality of forcing people to buy health insurance and determining what the insurance would cover — warnings regarding Obamacare contained three major elements. They are: government interference on a scale this massive means that relationships between doctors and patients will be affected; countless people will lose their existing insurance and finally, there is no way to keep healthcare cost down that does not involve rationing. The mainstream media, with AP "fact checkers" leading the charge, uniformly called these warnings exaggerated and false. The basis for this negative judgment was in many cases simply recycling the Obama administration’s Obamacare propaganda. Now the slow drip, drip, drip of reality has worn away at the boulder of MSM denial. Now the AP ruefully admits, “Before the law took effect, experts warned that narrow networks could impact patient's access to care, especially in cheaper plans. But with insurance cards now in hand, consumers are finding their access limited across all price ranges.

“The dilemma undercuts President Obama's 2009 pledge that: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period." Consumer frustration over losing doctors comes as the Obama administration is still celebrating a victory with more than 8 million enrollees in its first year.”

There are a couple of noteworthy items in that grudging acknowledgment of the truth. First it didn’t “undercut” Obama’s “If you like your doctor you can keep him” promise. It showed the promise to be the outright lie it always was. Second, “limited access” means you can’t keep the insurance policy you liked either, because in many cases it disappeared.

But the most telling fudge, and proof if you needed it that the media is still in the tank for Obama, is when AP explains, “Narrow networks are part of the economic trade-off for keeping premiums under control and preventing insurers from turning away those with pre-existing conditions.”

Narrow networks is public relations spin for the more accurate word: rationing. Which means everything conservatives warned about has come true.

Americans are competent enough to choose their own life insurance, car insurance, and homeowner’s insurance, why should health insurance be any different?

Dan Calabrese sums up what a conservative alternative to the Obamacare monster would look like.

“In a broad sense, this entirely predictable result demonstrates that one of the biggest flaws in Obamacare was that it doubled down on what was wrong with healthcare finance in the first place. People didn't need to be made more reliant on third parties to pay for their healthcare. They were already too reliant on third parties to begin with.

"Effective reform would have lessened the influence of health insurers and changed tax incentives to put more money in the hands of people to pay for their own basic care — limiting the use of insurance coverage to truly catastrophic needs.”

http://news.reaganreports.com/t/3968277/97659511/712058/8/