Romney: CBO said 20 mil will lose employer - grp insurance due to ACA. Wrong! But I have a question
Romney's statement that the CBO estimated 20 million will lose their employer provided group health insurance due to implementation of the ACA was reviewed by Politifact and they found it to be false (see below). Romney cherry-picked a number that was included by the CBO as the top of the range of estimates of the number of people who will either choose an Insurance Exchange policy (at their option) or will lose employer coverage. The CBO's baseline number (most likely to occur) was 3 million people.
[font size="3"]But I have a question. Does the CBO or anybody else have a prediction of how many people would lose their employer provided (cost shared) group insurance - if there was no ACA? Insurance costs are going up rapidly. Employers were saying there might come a time when they can no longer afford providing group coverage for employees - before Health care reform was even being talked about. Whatever the number of people losing employer provided group coverage due to the ACA is estimated to be - there should be an estimate of those who will lose group coverage without the ACA in place.[/font]
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/04/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-20-million-will-lose-health-insur/
(emphasis my own)
Even beyond the cherry-picking, Romney is wrong to say that 20 million Americans will "lose" their insurance.
According to CBO’s "baseline" estimates, 3 million people will spurn their employer’s offer of insurance and turn instead to another source, such as the health insurance "exchanges" created under the Obama health care law. In many cases, they will do this because they consider the employer’s offering to be unaffordable or lacking too many features they need.
Romney also ignores 9 million people who wouldn’t have had an employer plan before the Obama law, but who will get employer coverage after passage of the law, perhaps because of the law’s mix of subsidies and penalties for employers.
It’s also important to remember the big picture. CBO projects that, overall, the number of uninsured Americans will drop by 29 million to 31 million due to the law.
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...another question, this one for Politifact. The 9 million who will likely obtain employer provided group health insurance .... do they mean the CBO estimate of 3 million people losing group coverage - is NOT A NET NUMBER???? If it's not, then the real number CBO should be putting out there is 6 million MORE PEOPLE WILL HAVE EMPLOYER PROVIDED - (I.E. PRIVATE) GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE - BECAUSE OF THE ACA!
By the way, I have an acronym for referring to every time Romney tells another lie: So What Else Is New ..or: SWEIN! as in: "SWEIN! Romney told ANOTHER LIE!"
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