(rant) Forbes' Obamacare assault may be the Biggest ACA Lie Yet

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Wed Sep 25, 2013, 10:47 AM - Edit history (13)

...Unfortunately, the experts working for Medicare’s actuary have (yet again[1]) reported that in its first 10 years, Obamacare will boost health spending by “roughly $621 billion” above the amounts Americans would have spent without this misguided law.

What this means for a typical family of four

$621 billion is a pretty eye-glazing number. Most readers will find it easier to think about how this number translates to a typical American family—the very family candidate Obama promised would see $2,500 in annual savings as far as the eye could see. So I have taken the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected U.S. population to determine the added amount per person and multiplied the result by 4...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/23/its-official-obamacare-will-increase-health-spending-by-7450-for-a-typical-family-of-four/

When I said this may be the biggest lie yet, I perhaps should have said deepest lie. Death panels is perhaps a bigger lie, but shallow. Just a statement of the false... "I saw a unicorn." But this Forbes piece is crooked in so many different directions... a depravedly cynical exercise invalidated by three or four different levels of deception, each of which would render it a lie, but combined make it prevarication GOLD.

Headline: Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending By $7,450 For A Typical Family of Four

Okay, first off, the number is over ten years. That is the first layer of deception. It is really $745/year. The CBO scores thing in ten-year terms but family finances don't work that way. Even if the article was mostly true (it is not), expressed in CBO terms, a "typical family of four" will earn $400,000-$500,000, and thus might be able to afford $7450.

Secondly, maybe I am not reading Doctor Crackpot correctly, but it seems to me that if a lot more people get healthcare than would have otherwise, we would expect more to be spent on healthcare overall. So the notion of some net increase in national healthcare spending is unexceptional.

What does increasing health spending "for" a typical family of four mean to you? It means the amount that typical family will spend, right? WRONG. You failed the Dr. Crackpot test. It turns out the number has nothing to do with what the plan costs any family, typical or not, and has no connection to family finances whatsoever.

Look at how the average cost for a family of four is calculated!

Total projected increase in healthcare spending (not premiums paid by families... total healthcare spending in the collective American economy) divided by population, then multiplied by four.

WTF? or, to be more precise... WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

The headline could just have easily have been Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending By $7,450 For four typical saucer abductees... for the last four typical US Presidents... for four typical hospice patients... for four typical very healthy persons... for the liberal minority on the Supreme Court... the bogus stat is the same for any four Americans.

A "family of four" is supposed to conjure the mental picture of two adult parents and two children, or one parent and three children. There are always somechildren involved there. And the cost for healthcare for those children is derived by averaging everyone. Um... most health spending is directed at old people, not children. And that "typical" family of four will not be billed for health insurance based on what health insurance might cost if their children were elderly.

Again, WTFF? Who would derive anything about a family of four without first isolating data that applies to families of four? The average size of animals in the zoo is 120 pounds so a typical family of four house cats weighs 480 lbs.

I suggest that there is nothing TYPICAL about a family of a mom and dad in their thirties with two children who are elderly, so the use of totals including elderly care costs to deduce what insurance for "typical" children will cost is amazingly dishonest.

(Also, the word "typical" means something in stats. A mean average is almost never described as 'typical' by people trying to tell the truth because the word average has the same number of letters. Typical-ness is more usually expressed by the median, not the mean average.)

But if your children do happen to be elderly cancer patients needing hip replacements, it'll cost you, by golly! Except it won't, because first, your elderly children would be on medicare, and, More Pointedly, the figure calculated (sic) is total healthcare spending in America, not the cost of healthcare to a family of four or any other size.

Most of this spending is Medicare and a lot of Medicaid thrown in, and the average family of four will not be paying any of that except in the form of payroll deductions and federal income taxes. And the typical family of four does not pay a lot of federal income tax because they do not have a lot of money. A billionaire, however, might end up paying more someday because of Obamacare.

But, as Stephen Colbert noted last week, the average reader of FORBES is a billionaire.

[TroglodyteScholar]

1. Shady math...

...is the only math with people whose conclusions are all foregone.

[ProSense]

2. It's fanning the anti-Obamacare flame

with utter stupidity, and hoping no one will notice.

Sorry, The Latest Anti-Obamacare Article To Go Viral Is Totally Wrong

By Igor Volsky

An article published by Forbes claiming that Obamacare will increase health care costs by $7,450 for a typical family of four is spreading like wildfire across the internet, but causing eye rolls from economists...The estimate by author Chris Conover, an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, comes from a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report, which projects that national health care spending will increase once the uninsured begin enrolling in the law’s health care exchanges.

“By 2022, the ACA is projected to reduce the number of uninsured people by 30 million, add approximately 0.1 percentage-point to average annual health spending growth over the full projection period, and increase cumulative health spending by roughly $621 billion,” the report finds.

To translate that number to a “typical American family,” Conover took “the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected U.S. population to determine the added amount per person,” multiplied that result by four and voila: Obamacare will add $7,450 to average health spending for a family of four between 2014 and 2022!

One economist interviewed by ThinkProgress, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ Paul Van de Water, described this calculation as one of the stupidest things he’s read in a long time and likened it to arguing that college costs will increase for a “typical” family if the federal government adopts policies that help lower-income Americans afford college educations. Yes, the nation will spend more on education if more students enroll in colleges and universities, but the “typical” student already attending college won’t; she or he will continuing paying tuition at more or less the same rate, while the newly-enrolled student will presumably benefit from some sort of subsidized tuition rate.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/23/2666391/anti-obamacare-article/

It's Obamacare.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023715400

[mysuzuki2]

3. Consider the source. ALWAYS consider the source.

[cthulu2016]

4. .

[gtar100]

5. I guess I'm not so typical in their eyes.

Just someone they might think of as the insignificant. The ones the rich are fine with throwing under the bus if it makes them an extra nickel.

Who knew the rich would could be so shrill! This coming of Obamacare scares the hell out of them. And I'm sure not one of them is going to postpone a vacation because of medical expenses. Anyone who is fighting against Obamacare deserves a big 'fuck you' in their face.

[IronLionZion]

6. What do they hope to accomplish by publishing these lies?

Do they think people will NOT sign up for insurance? Support defunding obamacare subsidies?

Sometimes you have to wonder if they spread this blatant bullshit just to be a nuisance.

edit: the updates at the bottom of the forbes article seem to show that this fool wallows in it like a pig in filth http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/23/its-official-obamacare-will-increase-health-spending-by-7450-for-a-typical-family-of-four/

[pnwmom]

7. I can't rec this enough. Thanks for all the work, cthulu1016!

[zipplewrath]

8. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

I've seen this one recently. The amount of statistical bullshit going on is hard to keep track. It would be vastly more honestly if they would quantify/describe/explain the "typical family of 4" in these. Not to mention what the family would be doing/getting if Obamacare DIDN'T exist.

[EgyptianDentist]

9. Please answer my question about obamacare

I cant start a new thread, if Obama care is gonna add nearly 40 millions of patients to insurance. will the no of hospitals increase? will the no of doctor increase?

[cthulu2016]

10. 1) Of course. 2) Please answer my question also...

If the government subsidized coffee purchase for people who cannot currently afford coffee will there be more starbucks?

Yes.

Will there be longer lines at some Starbucks? Yes, particularly at first. That is why Starbucks would add more Starbucks. It would be more profitable to do so.


Now answer my question.

Whenever someone objects to Obamacare because it will tax existing healthcare resources, what are they SAYING?

I would suggest that they are saying that the convenience of people currently getting healthcare outweighs people currently not getting healthcare getting healthcare, which is morally bizarre.

[EgyptianDentist]

11. You dont get it

I am just saying that if you want to increase the number of patients getting h. insurance which is good, you should also use part of the money collected to build new hospitals, increase no of doctors, help medical students, etc ..
50 millions of patients isnt a simple number, and medicine isnt coffee, a patient is a human being who wants his/her doctor to cure him/her from all pain.

[TekGryphon]

16. No, you don't get it.

Modern healthcare is a strongly viable business. Wall Street has trillions of dollars floating around for the exact purpose of providing capital investment for the expansion of viable businesses.

It is the government's job to insure every American has access to basic healthcare and that the transactions are regulated fairly and ethically.

It is the private sector's job to insure hospitals are built, doctors are hired, and offices are staffed.

[AllyCat]

19. Example: hospitals in my town are consolidating themselves into systems with their own insurance

And they are already building LOTS of clinics. They know what this will do and are preparing for increased patient influx. And our state (and hospital system) has fought ACA from the beginning. But they aren't dumb and are preparing for the future. We aren't going to get more doctors because the AMA encourages med schools to limit enrollment because they are trying to artificially prop up MD salaries. However, many if not most preventive services can be provided by Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants. Clinical Nurse Specialists will be a part of the care team as well.

[Beaverhausen]

14. You assume everyone who gets insurance will be sick

They aren't. In fact, now that they have insurance they will remain healthier longer.

[TekGryphon]

17. Good point.

If anything we'll hopefully see a surge in demand for providers of preventative health services. I like to dream of a country where every family has access to a nutritional/fitness expert.

[Scurrilous]

12. K & R

[Pretzel_Warrior]

13. I HATE THESE FUCKING LYING LIARS!!! They are despicable. Thankfully, maybe some real education

of the masses via these debunking efforts can take place. Unbelievable how this country has become one giant corporate shell game for the masters of the universe to try and win while the peons suffer.

[davidpdx]

15. As someone else in the thread said consider the source

I would expect nothing but manure from those who want to defeat the ACA.

[AllyCat]

18. The average size of animals in the zoo is 120 pounds so a typical family of house cats weighs 480 lb

Classic!! This is a great post cth16!

[pangaia]

20. "...the average reader of FORBES is a billionaire."

[Steerpike]

21. According to the calculator on the ACA website

as a part time worker with no insurance I will pay 128 dollars a month with a 5200.00 a year deducible. As far as I can see there is only one difference for me. The yearly deductible is 2000 dollars higher than my last insurance plan. And this is for the silver plan! Anyways...the more things change the more they stay the same...

http://www.healthcare.gov/how-can-i-get-an-estimate-of-costs-and-savings-on-marketplace-health-insurance/

Hopefully these numbers will change after oct 1...I should be so lucky.