Associated Press: Yeah, Obama is Exaggerating Benefits of Obamacare

Katie Pavlich | July 19, 2013 8:46 AM

Yesterday President Obama gave a speech in an attempt to reassure Americans Obamacare is a good thing after his administration delayed the employer mandate until 2015 while keeping the individual mandate in place. During his remarks, he berated critics for "playing politics" while claiming Obamacare lowers costs and provides better care.

But today, the Associated Press fact checker is calling much of Obama's speech misleading and exaggerated.

Another year, another round of exaggeration from President Barack Obama and his administration about health insurance rebates.

In his speech defending his health care law Thursday, Obama said rebates averaging $100 are coming from insurance companies to 8.5 million Americans. In fact, most of the money is going straight to employers who provide health insurance, not to their workers, who benefit indirectly.

Obama danced around that reality in remarks that also blamed problems in establishing affordable insurance markets on political opponents, glossing over complex obstacles also faced in states that support the law.

Just as he did a year ago, Obama made a splashy announcement about rebates that incorporates misleading advertising.

As a reminder, it isn't just Obama's political opponents who are opposed to Obamacare in its current form, but many of Obama's long time allies as well. Earlier this week, heads of the most powerful unions in the country, including the Teamsters, sent a searing letter to the administration demanding Obamacare be changed and fixed.

Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios.

A recent Fox News poll

A record number of voters want the 2010 Affordable Care Act repealed entirely, while sizable majorities say they are worried about their health care under the new law and expect their medical costs will go up, according to a new Fox News poll.

The poll, released Wednesday, finds that 58 percent of voters favor repealing all (39 percent) or some (19 percent) of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

Another 19 percent would leave the law as is, while 17 percent would expand its coverage further.

A 62-percent majority of independents favors repealing at least some of the law.

Nearly three times as many voters say the health care law makes them feel more worried (66 percent) rather than reassured (23 percent). And the anxiety is rising -- the number feeling worried is up 15 percentage points since July 2012, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional last year.