As the Republican-controlled Congress grapples with a 7-year-old promise to repeal Obamacare, the roiling controversy has prompted House and Senate members on both sides of the partisan aisle to spout highly misleading statements to constituents who have weighed in on Obamacare versus the GOP replacement plan.
ProPublica, a watchdog journalism organization, has found that constituents sending emails and letters to their representatives and senators have often been subjected to typical Washington spin.
As the House delays its vote on the replacement proposal, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), ProPublica finds that voters who contact their congressional representatives are often scammed with misleading or blatantly false information.
One of the congressional responses that rises to the top of the BS list was presented by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician. Cassidy claimed that the existing Affordable Care Act provides a presidentially handpicked “Health Choices Commissioner” who determines what coverage and treatments are available to each ACA recipient.
Of course, none of that is true.
The woman who questioned Cassidy, her senator, about his reasons for opposition to maintaining the ACA, Andrea Mongler, 34, a freelance writer seeking a master’s degree in public health, expressed dismay about the disconnect in Washington with the facts.
“I hate that people are being fed falsehoods, and a lot of people are buying it and not questioning it. It’s far beyond politics as usual,” she said.
As the debate to repeal the Obamacare law reaches the boiling point on Capitol Hill, constituents across the nation flood their representatives with notes of support or concern, and the lawmakers are responding, sometimes with form letters that are misleading.
A review of more than 200 such letters by ProPublica and its partners at Kaiser Health News, Stat and Vox, found dozens of errors and mischaracterizations about the ACA and its proposed replacement. The legislators have cited wrong statistics, conflated health care terms, and made statements that don’t stand up to verification.
Elected officials in both parties have incorrectly cited statistics and left out important context.
According to ProPublica, their staff took a closer look after finding misleading statements in an email Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sent to his constituents. Subsequently, ProPublica solicited letters from the public and found a wealth of misinformation, from statements that were simply misleading to whoppers. More Republicans fudged than Democrats, though both had their moments.
An aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., defended the lawmaker’s hyperbole about employers shifting workers to part-time status as “within the range of respected interpretations.”
Among the Democrats spouting inaccuracies was Rep. Joseph Kennedy III of Massachusetts, whose recent impassioned speech against wiping out the ACA went viral and was viewed by millions online.
Kennedy told his constituency that Obamacare has “allowed 6.1 million young adults to remain covered by their parents’ insurance plans.” But a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services pegged the number of 26-and-younger retaining insurance at 2.3 million. The congressman apparently reached the 6.1 million figure by including the 3.8 million young adults who secured coverage through the Obamacare exchange marketplaces from October 2013 through early 2016.
To their credit, the Kennedy staff told ProPublica that they would correct future letters to the congressman’s constituents.
Rep. Mike Bishop of Michigan, a Rochester Hills Republican, made his case to constituents against the ACA by citing an obscure, speculative 2013 report by a GOP-led House Committee that predicted spectacular increases in Obamacare premiums.
While premiums this year have jumped dramatically in some states, based largely on one of the many insurance plans offered in the Obamacare exchange, Bishop relied upon a 4-year-old partisan report.
Here’s the summary by ProPublica researchers:
What he wrote: “Health insurance premiums are slated to increase significantly. Existing customers can expect an average increase of 73 percent, while the average change due to Obamacare for those purchasing a new plan will be a 96 percent increase in premiums. The average cost for a new customer in the individual market is expected to rise $1,812 per year.”
What’s misleading: The figures seem to have come from a report issued before the Obamacare insurance marketplaces launched and before 2014 premiums had been announced. The letter implies these figures are current. In fact, premium increases by and large have been moderate under Obamacare. The average monthly premium for a benchmark plan, upon which federal subsidies are calculated, increased about 2 percent from 2014 to 2015; 7 percent from 2015 to 2016; and 25 percent this year, for states that take part in the federal insurance marketplace.
Bishop’s response: None
Another example — Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., falsely claimed that family premiums are declining under Obamacare. In fact, family insurance premiums have increased in recent years under Obamacare, though the ACA subsidies mitigated the impact for low- and middle-income families.
