Health Bill Fact Check

Major changes in policies?

• For those who are in group policies, there would be no significant change in premiums, compared with what would be paid under current law. For those in large groups, there would be somewhere between no change at all and a 3% decrease in premium cost. For small groups, the change could fall between a 1% increase and a 2% decrease.
• The only significant increases would be seen by those who buy their policies individually, the average premium per person would be between 10% and 13% higher.
• Premiums would go up for 32 million people. (17% of workers covered by private insurance) but benefits would improve in the nongroup market.
• The bill would require plans to have a standard level of benefits. However, most of those buying their own coverage would receive subsidies that would prompt them to buy more expensive plans than they normally would. 

Taxes. Up or down? 

• “Taxes” would also cause premium costs to go up – but that’s not really the case, some predict that the Senate bill’s excise tax on high-cost health plans would actually bring premium costs down. That’s because the tax would induce employers and employees to choose lower-cost plans with less coverage, to avoid being hit by the tax. CBO said the average premium for those affected by the tax would be 9% to 12% lower. 

What about Medicaid?

• Reports have shown that 50% of doctors won’t see new patients. That claim was echoed by GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, who said "Doctors don’t take Medicaid."

• But according to a 2008 survey of 4,700 physicians by the Center for Studying Health System Change, nationwide only 28% of physicians won’t accept any new patients who are insured by Medicaid. HSC, which is funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is affiliated with Mathematica Policy Research Inc., also found that 19% accept some new Medicaid patients, while 53% accept most or all of them

So what was all the stink about?

• Critics like Mitt Romney are marking this Bill as Socialist & Marxist- saying that the Presidents health-care bill is unhealthy for America. It installs price controls, and puts a new federal bureaucracy in charge of health care. It will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt. 
• Approval ratings. CNN expects Obama to get a bump from a week (or several weeks) worth of positive press in the wake of Congress' passage of the health care bill this past weekend. But, if the CNN numbers are to be believed he needs a large and sustained bump to turn public opinion on the bill.
• Second term in mind- We've noted before that unlike House and Senate Democrats, President Obama is operating under a long-ish timetable on health care. The strong statements by nearly every one of his potential rivals suggest that Republicans believe the bill is a winner for the Blue- at least in a GOP presidential primary but also, perhaps, in a general election fight as well.