Fact Check: Obama's ObamaCare claims

WASHINGTON –  As the Obama administration scrambles to roll out the health care exchanges for their Tuesday debut, it's worth a look back on the conflicting claims the White House has made on how the exchanges help, who they benefit and what they promise.
The following are some of President Obama's better-known claims, and how they stack up to the facts.
STAYING PUT?
When stumping for the health care overhaul, Obama repeatedly told people that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.” It’s even on the White House web site. So is this true? Not quite.
While the Affordable Care Act doesn’t force insured Americans to pick new plans or doctors, it also doesn’t ensure that your employer won’t decide to switch plans.
If that happens, the insured individual will have to go with what the employer decides. Similarly, if someone gets a new job, there is no guarantee that the new coverage will offer the same doctor as an in-network provider.
A shake-up of providers is likely, experts say. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says it’s hearing that many carriers will cancel policies and issue new ones because it would be administratively easier to do so than changing existing plans.
PAYING LESS?
Obama has claimed that the uninsured will pay less on the government exchanges than they would on the individual market. So is it true?
Depends.
During an Aug. 9 press conference, the president said that the 15 percent of the country’s population that’s uninsured would be able to “sign up for affordable quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market.” He noted they'll get additional tax credits if "even with lower premiums they still can’t afford it."
But even his own team admits to some fuzzy math on that one.
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has acknowledged that younger people will likely pay more and older people will pay less on the insurance exchanges. The cost of premiums will also be based on geography and other determining factors like smoking.
Economist Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was a paid adviser on the Obama administration’s health care plans, goes so far as saying that a small share of the uninsured would actually pay higher premiums on the exchanges.
ALL COVERED?
When ObamaCare was initially presented to the public in 2009, it was said that the new law would provide health insurance for every man, woman and child in America. So is it true? The law will cover many more, but not everyone.
While ObamaCare is expected to extend coverage to 25 million Americans over the next 10 years, it will leave a projected 31 million people without insurance by 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Though the law requires individuals to buy health insurance, many are expected to buck that mandate and risk the possibility of a fine. Most of the 31 million will be people living below the poverty line in the 21 states that have decided against expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare.
SAVING JOBS?
Part of the president’s push with ObamaCare has been that it will create new jobs. But Obama scaled back his promise of job creation during a speech in Largo, Md., on Thursday. Instead, he said his health care overhaul wouldn’t hurt jobs.
“There's no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs,” he said.
But critics have sharply challenged that claim.
A recent report in Investor’s Business Daily shows that as a direct result of ObamaCare, more than 300 companies have either eliminated jobs or reduced full-time jobs to part-time jobs. The administration describes this evidence as anecdotal.
But it’s not just the administration that’s been caught stretching the truth when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has repeatedly claimed that Obama let lawmakers off the hook by allowing them to opt out of using the exchanges.
“Look, the wheels are coming off this,” Cruz said during a conservative summit in Iowa on Aug. 10. “The teamsters are abandoning it. President Obama just granted all of Congress an exception. And he did it because Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats who passed this thing came begging and said, ‘Please, please, please let us out of ObamaCare.’ This thing ain’t working.”
Again, not quite.
The truth is that the new law requires lawmakers to use marketplaces set up through ObamaCare. They aren’t exempt from participating -- however, the administration did issue a change allowing Congress and their staff to continue to receive employer subsidies to pay for insurance.

Congress misses deadline, sending government into partial shutdown

Congress blew by a midnight deadline to pass a crucial spending bill, triggering the beginning of a partial government shutdown – the first in 17 years.
Lawmakers missed the deadline after being unable to resolve their stand-off over ObamaCare, despite a volley of 11th-hour counterproposals from the House. Each time, Senate Democrats refused to consider any changes to ObamaCare as part of the budget bill.
House Republicans, for their part, refused to back off their demand that the budget bill include some measures to rein in the health care law – a large part of which, the so-called insurance “exchanges,” goes into effect on Tuesday.
As House Republicans endorsed one more counterproposal in the early morning hours, lawmakers spent the final minutes before midnight trying to assign blame to the other side of the aisle. Republicans are no doubt wary of the blowback their party felt during the Clinton-era shutdown, while Democrats were almost eager to pile the blame on the GOP.
“This is an unnecessary blow to America,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said.
House Speaker John Boehner claimed that Republicans are the ones trying to keep the government open but “the Senate has continued to reject our offers.”
Ahead of the deadline, the White House budget office ordered agency heads to execute an “orderly shutdown” of their operations due to lack of funds. Americans will begin to feel the effects of a shutdown by Tuesday morning, as national parks close, federal home loan officers scale back their caseload, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers face furlough.
The question now is how long the stand-off will last. Congress is fast-approaching another deadline, in mid-October, to raise the debt limit or face a U.S. government default. Lawmakers presumably want to resolve the status of the government swiftly in order to shift to that debate.
Throughout the day Monday, lawmakers engaged in a day-long bout of legislative hot potato.
The House repeatedly passed different versions of a bill that would fund the government while paring down the federal health care overhaul. Each time, the Senate said no and sent it back.
As a last-ditch effort, House Republicans early Tuesday morning endorsed taking their disagreement to what’s known as a conference committee – a bicameral committee where lawmakers from both chambers would meet to resolve the differences between the warring pieces of legislation.
The latest House bill, which the Senate shot down late Monday, would delay the law's individual mandate while prohibiting lawmakers, their staff and top administration officials from getting government subsidies for their health care.
The House voted again to endorse that approach early Tuesday and send the bill to conference committee.
“It means we're the reasonable, responsible actors trying to keep the process alive as the clock ticks past midnight, despite Washington Democrats refusal - thus far - to negotiate,” a GOP leadership aide said.
Reid, though, said the Senate would not agree to the approach unless and until the House approves a “clean” budget bill.
The rhetoric got more heated as the deadline neared.
“They’ve lost their minds,” Reid said of Republicans, in rejecting the latest proposal.
“Senate Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they’d rather shut down the federal government than accept even the most reasonable changes to ObamaCare,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell countered.
Amid the drama, President Obama said he was holding out hope that Congress would come together "in the 11th hour."
Such a deal did not come to pass.
A prior Republican effort to include a provision defunding ObamaCare in the budget bill failed. House Republicans then voted, early Sunday, to add amendments delaying the health care law by one year and repealing an unpopular medical device tax.
The Senate, in a 54-46 vote, rejected those proposals on Monday afternoon.
At this stage, congressional leaders are hard at work trying to assign blame.
Democrats have already labeled this a "Republican government shutdown." But Republicans on Sunday hammered Reid and his colleagues for not coming back to work immediately after the House passed a bill Sunday morning. Bailey Comment: "Big deal, who really cares about this government shutdown except all of the leeches sucking off the tax payers".