The media's anti-health care reform propaganda is as big a scam as "lost" substandard health insurance plans

The Affordable Care Act continues to come under assault, the latest “fault” for reasons perfectly illegitimate. Once more the media declines to do its duty and inform the public of certain facts it should be aware of, preferring instead to disseminate what it calls “facts” that only serve to distort and mislead. It seems that as many as 14 million people with either individual or small company health plans have been or will be dropped from their current coverage by the end of the year. According to the story, the president “lied” when he said no one would lose their coverage under health care reform. 

Obama didn’t really “lie” about this; people who have legitimate health care insurance have not lost their plans. If he can be faulted, it is only that he underestimated the shocking number of substandard plans being offered to the public. It is only people who were offered and/or knowingly accepted inferior insurance plans or outright scams that are illegal under the ACA who “lost” their plans. One fact that the media is ignoring is that people would have been allowed to “opt-out” of substandard plans offered by their companies anyways; if large numbers of employees chose the exchange rather than the inferior plan they had in the past, there certainly would have been no point in continuing it. Believe me, there are some people who are only too happy to have available to them affordable health care insurance that is real. 

The people who are complaining about losing their so-called health plans are the ones who apparently think they will never have use for it. But the reality is that when they do need it, it will only cover a fraction of the costs. Perhaps people with higher incomes believe they can absorb the additional out-of-pocket expenses, or they simply have not taken into account those costs. On the other hand, for low-income people these plans are scams of the worst kind—taking money out of every paycheck, and when it comes for payback, it is as if they are getting nothing in return.

The media refuses to tell this truth, preferring to create a phony “scandal.” These fraudulent health care plans that are being dropped do not offer even the most basic coverage mandated by the ACA. This is supposed to be a “bad” thing? Is access to ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, prescription drugs, laboratory services, chronic disease management and—oh, the horror, preventative care—items that you think should not be required in a legitimate health insurance policy?   

Maybe some of you do, but speak for yourself—not for me and millions of others who are invisible to you but are real human beings just as you are. Millions of us were forced to delay or avoid health care because we were denied treatment because of poor or nonexistent coverage, or simply could not afford the prohibitive out-of-pocket expense because of pay levels far below either the mean or median income. With the ACA, people can now afford real health insurance for not much more than what they were paying for scam “insurance.” 

Health care reform means exactly that—and that is no “lie.” What people are “losing” amounts to a net gain if they only choose to put aside the political propaganda. Why the media is failing to inform the public the reasons why people should be thankful that Obama and the Democrats had the courage to look to their long-term interests, instead of being toyed with by Republican and Tea Party partisanship, can only be explained by the belief that “bad news” is good for ratings.