All Those Obamacare Stories You Told Us Were Untrue
by Amy Payne, Heritage Foundation, April 7, 2014
“There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue.” – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
“Many of the tall tales that have been told about this law have been debunked.” – President Barack Obama
Last week was “victory lap” week for liberals on Obamacare. After years of telling the American people that we just don’t understand the health law enough to love it properly, the president and his allies are now crowing that all debate should be over.
Our readers have told us about Obamacare’s effects in their lives—hiking their insurance costs and canceling many of their plans. I guess Harry Reid thinks you guys made these up.
But he didn’t stop with insulting everyday Americans. Reid took a dig last week at Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), himself a doctor who is resigning from the Senate to continue cancer treatment.
Coburn initially lost his cancer specialist when he was forced into the Obamacare system. But when Coburn voiced concern—from experience—about the lack of cancer treatment centers covered under Obamacare, Reid said he was just “getting into the weeds” and that “I think we need to look at the overall context of this bill.”
The editorial board of Investor’s Business Daily marveled :
We recently called Senate Majority Leader Reid “delusional” on another topic, but to that we can now add “callous” and “insensitive” — in his disregard of cancer sufferers and the hardships imposed on them by administration politics and ObamaCare.
… Reid coldly dismisses people such as Edie Sundby, a stage four cancer patient, who was told that the plan that had paid out $1.2 million and helped her survive all these years was substandard and would be canceled because it didn’t contain the one-size-fits-all coverage mandates of ObamaCare.
Meanwhile, President Obama exulted in claiming that the “tall tales” about Obamacare “have been debunked.” Was he talking about Obamacare’s job-killing effects? Its limiting of patient choices? Its forcing all Americans into a one-size-fits-all health care model?
Thankfully, this isn’t the end of the story. In the same week, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) released a blueprint for health care reform. Heritage experts have been working on patient-centered solutions for years. Americans know that the horror stories are real, and that there has to be a better way to go.
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