Deep South Republican officials are full of bullshit when providing estimates of Obamacare impact (via Charles Gaba)
South Carolina: ACA premiums to only go up 1% on average for 2015
Obamacare isn’t driving health insurance premiums through the roof in South Carolina.
In fact, individual plans sold through HealthCare.gov or directly by insurance companies should only increase by about 1 percent in this state next year.
That’s a relatively minor bump compared to some other states – and much lower than the 50 percent to 70 percent increase that South Carolina officials predicted a year ago.
Now let me look out the window and confirm that the sun comes up in the East while everyone else enjoys an open thread.
Elizabelle
Tell it, Richard. Glad to hear it.
Patricia Kayden
More great news for Obamacare.
Thanks Obama.
Pee Cee
Will that stop the idjits around here from claiming that Ebolacare is coming for their guns? No.
But still, good news.
JPL
Truth has a liberal bias. Does it matter since the citizens will be told the opposite. Mitt said after four years of his presidency, he’d hope to get unemployment to six percent. Now he talks about the current President and his lack of job creation.
Belafon
@Pee Cee: I thought ebolacare was going to make us get gay married to our abortion.
debbie
@JPL:
What pisses me off the most is that GOPers like Mitt think they can say things like that and get away with it, thinking no one will fact-check them.
debbie
Here’s a great headline: “The View From Sarah Palin’s Porch Just Got More Fabulous.”
http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/videos/alaska-gay-marriage-ban-ruled-unconstitutional-federal-court-paves-way-for-marriage-equality/
Baud
That’s quite the train wreck.
Phylllis
Not only are our (SC) state-provided insurance premiums not going up next year for the first time in the past five years, my out-of-pocket costs this year have noticeably decreased compared to last year.
Tommy
I have said it, will say it again. Last year mom got really sick. Spent a month in the ICU. A lot of operations. It wasn’t pretty. I don’t know how all her health care costs broke down, but I know my father, a 30+ year civil service guy for the DoD, well that was a part of it. Their bill was, ZERO dollars.
Mom was just taken care of. I want that for everybody else!
Chris
@debbie:
Considering their base, you can’t entirely blame them. It’s not like the voters they have the most interaction with have a lot of time for these fancy pants “experts” with their book larnin and fuzzy math. Their mistake is in thinking that everyone else is going to let them off the hook.
Chris
@Tommy:
I have the same reaction when I see my grandmother’s hospital treatment as a veteran’s wife (widow, now). Everyone should get that kind of health care.
Tommy
@Chris: Again I an not an expert. But I want what my parents have!
terraformer
debbie:
Exactly. How many times have we seen/heard conservatives make some statement or other, and when facts prove them wrong (sometimes and usually by orders of magnitude), they are not only not called on it – as liberals surely are, oh yes – but are instead praised as “changing their views based on reflection” or as adept statesmen whose “positions mature with the times”? Wired for Republican control, indeed.
RaflW
The reason this bullshit about premiums works is that people know their personal finances are under a lot of pressure. They are very personally feeling the long-term effects of zero increase in real wages for most Americans.
It is entirely in the self-interest of the wealthy, who have made out like bandits in the past 30 years, and in particular in this “recovery,” for them to say Obamacare is incredibly expensive and costs are surging! It’s Obama’s fault you’re broke! Gubmit mandated commie healthcare is why your wages won’t go up (or we gotta lay off your aunt, or we need to cancel bathroom breaks, whatever).
Lies that confirm the net effect people are feeling, that explain away a complex issue can get a lot of traction.
Alex
Mitch McConnell promises to repeal Obamacare but keep the website Kynect around.
Which I guess is a summary of the Republican attitude towards Obamacare. All the good stuff will still be there if you vote for them, but Obamacare will be gone.
Luckily the media is pointing out how insane… oh wait, they aren’t.
Amir Khalid
@Alex:
I don’t follow this Obamacare thingie all that closely, living as I do on the other side of the planet. But is there a superficially plausible (even if untrue) Republican story for how Kynect would continue if Obamacare were repealed? Or have they not bothered to extend the story that far?
Frankensteinbeck
@RaflW:
That is true, but it is also true that the GOP base is made up of assholes who know people are hurting, and like it. They cheer when candidates talk about veterans dying from lack of treatment. More of them than I would ever have believed care only that liberal policies have given blacks greater equality. Whatever else they know to be true doesn’t matter.
@Amir Khalid:
They have said a couple of times that they’ll pass their own bill that will keep ‘all the good parts’. Does that count? They rarely mention it. They mostly seem to be relying on visceral hatred of Obama overriding logic, and it’s worked quite well.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: In a word, no. As any rational person would tell you, broadly available healthcare insurance requires the whole nine yards of subsidies, mandates, and tradeoffs. No way to get only the good stuff.
RaflW
McConnell only promises a web site. That’s it. That is the entirety of what he offers. A web site called Kynect.
What it does, who knows/cares. And the rubes seemingly accept this. Total suckers.
Fred
“Deep South Republican officials are full of bullshit.”
There. Less typing.
karen
@Tommy:
I’m lucky because MD expanded the qualification for Medicaid.
I had double mastectomy, rehab, complications after surgery.
You know how much I paid for that, counting the rooms and doctors?
Nada. Bubkis. Nothing.
grandpa john
@Fred:
well living in SC, I would say they are thieving sociopathic liars
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
In case you haven’t heard of it, what Republicans are promising is their old theory of Two Santa Clauses. Basically, if we let them do X, then we can have X and also Y because Santa Claus is magic!