AP transcribes false GOP attacks on health reform
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 20th, 2009 4:39 am by HL
AP transcribes false GOP attacks on health reform
The Associated Press uncritically reported Rep. Sue Myrick’s (R-NC) attacks on health care reform, including her false comparison of Democratic reform proposals to the health care systems in Canada and the United Kingdom and her claim that a study by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) “found that the health care tax increases being proposed would lead to the elimination of more than 1.6 million jobs.” In fact, Democrats are not considering a single-payer or socialized health care system, and the NFIB study Myrick cited examined a “hypothetical” policy, not the provisions of the actual bills under consideration.
AP forwards Myrick’s attacks on health care reform
From the September 19 AP article:
Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina issued the latest warning against a Democratic-backed health care overhaul as she recalled her fight with breast cancer. She said in the GOP’s weekly radio and Internet address that her diagnosis “took six doctors, three mammograms and one ultrasound before they finally they found my cancer. This process took only a few weeks.”
“Under the government-run health care system they have in Canada and the United Kingdom, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get those tests so quickly,” she said. “One international study found that three times as many citizens in those countries wait longer than a month to see a specialist. When it comes to life-threatening diseases like cancer, delay could mean death.”
Democrats are looking for competition to private insurance companies to help drive prices down: a government-run insurance option, a trigger to add that option later; or nonprofit insurance cooperatives, designed to compete with private industry and give consumers more choices.
“These so-called health care reform bills have different names: a public option, a co-op, a trigger,” Myrick said. “Make no mistake, these are all gateways to government-run health care.”
She said that the proposals mean higher taxes for small business owners “at a time when unemployment is nearing 10 percent and analysts are predicting that any kind of recovery will be a jobless one.”
She noted that she’s a former small-business owner.
“I can tell you from experience that this is the worst possible time to be imposing new, job-killing taxes. In fact, the nation’s largest small business association found the health care tax increases being proposed would lead to the elimination of more than 1.6 million jobs.”
NFIB study analyzed “hypothetical employer mandate,” not any of the bills under consideration
NFIB study from January assumed all employers subject to mandate. The study, which found that an “employer mandate would cause the economy to lose over 1.6 million jobs within the first five years of program implementation,” stated that “[a] hypothetical employer mandate was modeled and tested using a computer simulation that captured the mandate’s effects on U.S. businesses by firm size. The assumed mandate requires that all employers must offer private health insurance to their employees. Employers must finance at least 50 percent of their employees’ health insurance premiums. The remaining share of employee premiums is assumed to be financed by employee contributions and federal subsidies.”
House bill exempts employers with payrolls of $250,000 and less. The House tri-committee health care reform bill requires employers to provide insurance coverage for their employees or pay 8 percent of their payroll to the Health Insurance Exchange. However, employers with annual payrolls that do not exceed $250,000 are exempt. Moreover, employers with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 would have to pay a penalty of less than 8 percent.
House bill includes health care tax credit for small businesses. The tri-committee bill also stipulates that certain small businesses would be eligible for a tax credit of up to 50 percent of health coverage expenses.
Senate HELP bill exempts employers with fewer than 25 employees. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee stated in a summary of its bill that “[e]mployers with 25 or fewer employees are exempt from penalties and are eligible for program credits.” The committee specified that “[e]mployers with more than 25 employees who do not offer qualifying coverage … or who pay less than 60 percent of their employees’ monthly premiums are subject to a $750 annual fee per uninsured full-time employees and $375 per uninsured part-time employees.”
Senate HELP bill includes tax credits for small businesses. The committee’s summary states, “Beginning in 2010, employers with 50 or fewer full-time workers who pay 60 percent or more of their employees’ health insurance premiums will be permitted to receive tax credits for subsidizing coverage.”
Senate Finance bill lacks employer mandate. The Chairman’s Mark of the health care reform bill from the Senate Finance Committee states that “as under current law, an employer would not be required to offer health insurance coverage.” However, “employers with more than 50 employees that do not offer coverage would be required to pay a fee for each employee who receives a tax credit for health insurance through a state exchange.”
Bills under consideration would build upon — not replace — private insurance
AP previously reported that Dems do not want to replace private insurers. In a July 6 article, the AP reported on a television ad that claimed, “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.” The article noted, “In fact, President Barack Obama and Democrats pushing to overhaul health care want to create an optional, government-run plan to compete with private insurers but not replace them.” Indeed, all of the proposals under consideration in Congress would preserve the private insurance industry and increase the number of Americans enrolled in private insurance plans. Congress is not considering a Canadian-style single-payer health care system or a socialized system like that of the United Kingdom.
Obama has not proposed socialized medicine, single payer, or nationalized health care. As PolitiFact.com noted in a March 5 post, “Obama’s plan leaves in place the private health care system, but seeks to expand it to the uninsured,” and “the plan is very different from some European-style health systems where the government owns health clinics and employs doctors.” And during a March 26 online town hall, Obama explicitly rejected the notion of implementing a health care system “the way European countries do or Canada does,” explaining that what “we should do is to build on the [employer-based] system that we have.”
