by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
The latest labor statistics and health care statistics
refute the false claims being made against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by
Obamacare opponents. The claims and facts below are summarized from an
excellent op/ed in Forbes magazine by Rick Ungar, which can be found here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/03/10/the-real-numbers-on-the-obamacare-effect-are-in-now-let-the-crow-eating-begin/
CLAIM: Obamacare
will lead to a decline in full-time employment as employers reduce hours to
below 30 per week to avoid providing health benefits.
FACT: Numbers just
released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), shows
that part-time workers in the U.S. fell by 300,000 since the Affordable Care
Act became law. This past year, the first
full year of Obamacare health coverage, full-time employment grew by over 2
million. Part-time employment leaders who
oppose Obamacare. Fewer cops, fewer
teachers, fewer folks providing essential social services in the
public sector all to make political point.
CLAIM: Millions
of Americans are losing their individual health insurance policy due to Obamacare.
FACT: A
new study by Lisa Clemans-Cope and Nathaniel Anderson of the Urban
Institute found that prior to the Affordable Care Act the number of people kept
their individual policy was very low with just 17
percent retaining coverage for more than two years.” The Urban Institute conducted a survey last
December that asked 522 people between the ages of 18 and 64, “Did you receive a notice in the past few
months from a health insurance company saying that your policy is cancelled or
will no longer be offered at the end of 2013?” Only 18.6% said their plan was
cancelled because it didn't meet ACA coverage requirements, while the expected cancellation
rate was 17% in the years prior to Obamacare. You can find the following bar
graph and read more in Health Affairs.
The 18.6 percent who lost individual health insurance
coverage due to the ACA requirements amounts to about 2.6 million people. According
to the Urban
Institute researchers over half of these folks will be eligible for coverage assistance. Still,
roughly one million people will have to replace their cancelled policy with
something that may cost them more. This isn't good but it is less dramatic than
what has been reported and most of these individuals would have been in the
same boat prior to the ACA.
Facts matter - The Gallup-Healthways
Well-Being Index was also just released. It reveals that 15.9 percent
of American adults are now uninsured, down from 17.1 percent for the last three
months of 2013. That translates roughly
to 3 million to 4 million people getting coverage who did not have it before. The the number of Americans who still do not
have health insurance coverage is on track to reach the lowest quarterly number
since 2008.
Here is a link to a website where you can check out
state-by-state enrollments using an inter-active map: https://www.statereforum.org/tracking-health-coverage-enrollment-by-state?gclid=COCG7ffPob0CFYt9OgodPTQALQ
And this link is to an inter-active map showing the state-by-state
status on Medicaid expansion: https://www.statereforum.org/Medicaid-Expansion-Decisions-Map?gclid=CJ_i4L3Rob0CFYuXOgod2RMA4g
There are currently 5 to 8 million people who can't access
Medicaid because their political leaders oppose Obamacare. That means the
number of people being denied access to Medicaid expansion for political reasons
is greater than the number who have signed up for Obamacare so far. The Rand Corporation recently analyzed 14 of
the states with governors who oppose the Medicaid expansion and found their
actions will deprive 3.6 million people of health coverage under
Obamacare. These states will forgo $8.4 billion in federal funding. Moreover,
their political opposition to Obamacare will cost these states $1 billion for
programs that partially compensate medical providers who care for the indigent.
(see Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/medicaid-expansion_n_3367301.html).
Below is an excerpt and table of the uninsured by state that
is taken from the Health Affairs Blog, which you can goto at: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/01/30/opting-out-of-medicaid-expansion-the-health-and-financial-impacts/
Clearly, if the extreme efforts underway to by politicians
to derail the Affordable Care Act was instead focused towards making it work,
Obamacare would be wildly successful.
Examining the numbers. The number of uninsured people in states opting in and opting out
of Medicaid expansion is displayed in Exhibit 1. Nationwide, 47,950,687 people
were uninsured in 2012; the number of uninsured is expected to decrease by
about 16 million after implementation of the ACA, leaving 32,202,633
uninsured. Nearly 8 million of these remaining uninsured would have
gotten coverage had their state opted in. States opting in to Medicaid
expansion will experience a decrease of 48.9 percent in their uninsured
population versus an 18.1 percent decrease in opt-out states.
