Apologies for the Obamacare saturation coverage today, but news is news -- and the news is still terrible for Obamacare. Katie underscored the Associated Press' fact check of Obama's latest round of perfidious healthcare assertions earlier. Now McClatchy's getting in on the act with the unsparing headline, "Obama boasts of health care savings, but costs likely to rise for many." Yup:
President Barack Obama assailed Republicans on Thursday for trying to dismantle his signature health care law, saying it’s already providing a benefit of one kind or another to millions of Americans, including a drop in projected premium costs in nearly a dozen states. But experts predict that premiums on individual plans will increase in most states because of the new consumer protections the sweeping legislation requires. The impact on premiums will vary across states depending on geographic location, the type of coverage and the individual characteristics of the enrollee. For example, while Obama pointed to a reduction in premiums in New York state, state officials in Ohio say the average premium proposal for individual coverage next year is up 88 percent from this year’s average price as reported by the Society of Actuaries. In Maryland, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield proposed a 25 percent increase in premiums next year, after first seeking a 50 percent increase. Final rates haven’t been determined in either state.
Damn that Republican-dominated state of Maryland, or something. The president's pair of go-to "success" stories are New York and California, states dominated by Democrats with distorted and expensive healthcare markets that predate Obamacare's mandates. But even in these jurisdictions, the law's supporters are forced to cherry-pick data and make apples-to-oranges comparisons in order to manufacture results that appear to be positive. In reality, California premiums will spike for healthy young and middle-age citizens by as much as 146 percent. Indiana is the latest state to release its premium projections, and they're not pretty. On a separate Obamacare front, the Weekly Standard catches the Obama administration quietly retreating from another central promise upon which the law was sold. We've repeatedly demonstrated how the president's "you can keep your plan" pledge isn't panning out -- but he said the same thing about people's doctors. Remember this?
THE PRESIDENT: Here is a guarantee that I've made...If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor.
How's that "guarantee" shaping up these days? Here's a screenshot from HHS' new website on Obamacare. Notice the heavily-qualified answer to a strangely familiar question:
"Depending on...you may..." Now re-read Obama's promise. The goalposts shift again. I can't help but think back to the White House's revision of the "keep your plan" promise (which the president continues to make). They told ABC News that Americans shouldn't have taken the president's unambiguous pledge so literally. Good to know.
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