"Wall Street Journal Health Care Editorial Wrong on the Facts"

That was the headline on a memo prepared by the staff of the House Education and Labor Committee and released by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office last week. The amount of misinformation circulating out there about the House bill is growing.

Clearly, the conservatives are running scared. It’s not surprising when a Wall Street Journal editorial offers a unique interpretation of what is happening in Washington. The paper’s editorialists are known for their distinct perspective on American politics. But now, they are resorting to outright lies. Below, the text of the memo:

"The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial today [Tuesday, July 21] that advanced false and misleading information regarding the House’s health reform bill, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act  (H.R. 3200).

While most Americans are satisfied with their health insurance coverage now, most Americans are concerned that they will either lose their insurance or face staggering increases in premiums, co-pays or other costs. The America’s Affordable Health Choices Act is about giving all American families more choices of quality, affordable health care and the peace of mind that they will be covered with quality, affordable care no matter of their job or economic situation. 

Claim: Workers won’t be able to keep health coverage they like because Washington bureaucrats will change what employers can offer.

•  In 2018, all employer-provided plans will have to meet the minimum standard benefit offered as part of the Exchange. These minimum benefits will be based on 70 percent of the typical health insurance plan offered by employers today.
• More than 90 percent of all employer health insurance plans already meet or exceed these standards. Employers that do not meet these minimum standards will have until 2018 to meet the minimum standards.

Claim: Analysis by the Lewin Group analysis shows that 88 million of Americans will be thrown off of their employer plans.

•  The Lewin Group (a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare) analysis was requested by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and has been widely discredited for its flawed review of the House legislation.
•   The House bill actually protects and increases employer-sponsored insurance. According to official CBO numbers,  2 million more people would be covered under employer-sponsored insurance than is projected to be the case today – 164 million compared to 162 under current law.

Claim: The House bill removes current law that prevents employee lawsuits over employer provided benefits.

•  The legislation does not change current law regarding lawsuits.

Claim: High deductible plans and health savings accounts will be illegal under the House bill

•  Nothing in the legislation prevents employers from offering health savings accounts. In fact, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the average HSA today meets or exceeds the minimum benefits standards."

 
 

Comments

[judy]

Why - is no one talking about the real health care issue? That we have too many unwarranted and botched surgeries, preventable hospital-stay related deaths, high (especially compared to other 1st world countries) infant mortality, insurers refusing to cover non-western medicine treatments that have been shown to work (presumably because this many times cuts big pharma out of the deal) and that we have drug companies releasing drugs that cause severe side effects that can cause long term health care issues that are worse and more expensive to treat than the original ailment. Our system isn't working now and for reasons other than costs. Having the government help prop-up this profit driven system is not the answer. The answer lies in the work care not costs.

[research paper writing]

Well, I have been reading your blog posts daily and the reason I come on your blog frequently is its compelling content… Regards…

[Maggie Mahar]

Judy and Research Paper Writer:

Judy--The folks who have done the research at Dartmouth have been talking about the over-treatment and waste in our profit--driven system for more than two decades. Recently Harvard surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande wrote eloquently about the problem in his much-read article in the June 1 New Yorker.
But you are right. As the debate on healthcare reform heats up, the mainstream media is, by and large, ignoring this issue. As a result, the public is totally confused as to why we need to change the heatlhcare system, or what the reforms are all about.

Research Paper Writing-- Thanks much for the kind words. Good to know that you are reading the blog.

[lizGrove]

As usual the left simplifies things and looks at what is now instead of what will be.
If employer will face an 8% tax if they don't provide insurance and the cost of insurance is generally over 10% plus administrative and legal costs, does anyone with a brain think an employer is going to continue to provide health insurance?
Washington needs to work on their funding problems with medicare and its issues before trying to dump us all into a poorly run government system. Medicare is going broke and this is a feeble attempt to cover up the problems of it by throwing more people and tax money into it.

[maggiemahar]

Liz --

Apparently you haven't read the House bill.

It includes an entire section which focuses on reforming Medicare by moving away from fee-for-service payment (which encourages over-treatment), paying primary care doctors, geriatricains and pediatricians more, providing acholarships and loan forgiveness for people who go into primary care (to encourage more preventive care) and giving Medicare the freedom to lower fees and raise co-pays for treatments that provide less benefit to the patient while lowering co-pays for the most effective treatmetns.

The House bill makes it clear that the public sector insurance plan (which won't be rolled out until 2013) will be modeled on
a reformed Medicare.

As for employers-- I doubt many would drop the insurance and pay the tax. First, they recognize that offering health insurance helps them attract--and keep--good employees. Secondly, employees also can do the math, and you would soon hear demands that employers return the 2% to employees in the form of higher wages.