Contrary to all the right wing propaganda, Obamacare will benefit union and other workers:
GOP Talking Points Falling Apart: ‘Obamacare” Will Save BILLIONS in Lower Premiums
GOP Talking Points Falling Apart: 'Obamacare" Will Save BILLIONS in Lower Premiums - Occupy Democrats
It’s official: not only will “Obamacare” provide much better health insurance coverage for the American people and radically improve our nation’s healthcare system, it will also save Americans billions of dollars per year due to consumer protections that limit how much insurance can profit off of Americans’ premiums. Most of those savings stem from individual health plan providers
lowering the premiums they charge Americans in order to comply with the new law.
This eviscerates the dangerous Republican talking point that Obamacare
would inevitably lead to higher premiums, although you can bet that you won’t be hearing this on the latest FOXNews alert bulletin.
According to a
new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Americans who bought individual health plans in 2012 saved a staggering $2.1 billion thanks to these Obamacare consumer protections alone.
Perhaps due to our complacent corporate media, many Americans do not know that Elizabeth Warren’s
brainchild, the historic Consumer Protection Agency, is in charge of imposing these strict consumer protections and keeping the previously unchecked insurance companies from gouging the American people.
This comes on the heels of another extremely positive development for Pres. Obama’s signature healthcare reform, as several major California insurers
announced that they would have to pay back $36 million to small businesses and their employees after conveniently overcharging them.
The Affordable Care Act mandates that all insurers on the individual minute market spend at least 80% of their premiums on actual medical services, and not administrative expenses such as marketing and sales force.
Before the implementation of Obamacare, insurers were financing giant advertising campaigns with money they earned from ripping off the least fortunate and healthy among us. Now, Pres. Obama and his right-hand woman, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have ensured that at least 80% of our premiums will go to making us healthier and not to lining the profits of predatory insurance companies.
The good thing is, insurers can avoid writing those checks after-the-fact if they simply lower their premiums to begin with, and the Kaiser study
found that that is exactly what many individual plan providers have been doing. By their estimates, individual market insurers lowered premiums by $856 million in 2011 and by $1.9 billion in 2012 in order to comply with this wonderful Obamacare regulation.
Look at this incredible graph displaying how much money Americans saved in the years 2011 and 2012 and individual medical market (click to enlarge):
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