Obama blamed for rising health costs, AP poll, 69 percent say premiums rising, 59 percent deductibles or copayments increasing, Spouse coverage restricted or eliminated, Millions received cancellation notices
“If you like your plan, you can keep it.”…Barack Obama
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.”…Barack Obama
“millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.”…NBC News October 29, 2013
From Page A7 of the Greensboro News Record.
“Obama blamed for rising health costs”
From the Washington Times December 16, 2013.
“POLL: Obamacare to drive up health care cost for everyone”
“Just when the government’s insurance websiteis starting to run more smoothly, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds a potentially bigger problem for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
Americans who already have coverage and aren’t looking for any more government help are blaming the law for their rising premiums and deductibles.
Those are the 85 percent of Americans that the White House says don’t have to be worried about the president’s historic push to expand coverage for the uninsured. Overall 3 in 4 say the rollout of coverage for the uninsured has gone poorly as health care remains a politically charged issue going into next year’s midterm congressional elections.
In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77 percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act, even though the trend toward leaner coverage predates the law’s passage.
Sixty-nine percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing.
Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years.
Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued.
“Rightly or wrongly, people with private insurance looking at next year are really worried about what is going to happen,” said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who tracks public opinion on health care issues. “The website is not the whole story.”
Employers trying to control their health insurance bills have been shifting costs to workers for years, but now those changes are blamed increasingly on “Obamacare” instead of the economy or insurance companies.
Political leanings seemed to affect perceptions of eroding coverage, with larger majorities of Republicans and independents saying their coverage will be affected.
The White House had hoped that the Oct. 1 launch of open enrollment season for the uninsured would become a teaching moment, a showcase of the president’s philosophy that government can help smooth out the rough edges of life in the modern economy for working people.
Instead, the dysfunctional website became a parable for Republicans and others skeptical of government.
At the same time, a cresting wave of cancellation notices hit millions who buy their policy directly from an insurer. That undercut one of Obama’s central promises — that you can keep the coverage you have if you like it. The White House never clearly communicated the many caveats to that promise.
Disapproval of Obama’s handling of health care topped 60 percent in the poll.”
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