When Barack Obama’s barnstorming tour promoting the Affordable Care Act came to Portsmouth in 2009, he made Granite Staters this promise about Obamacare:
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”
Obama’s pledge was smart politics. Every Democrat in the U.S. Senate, including freshman Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, voted to pass the massive government health care scheme.
The pledge was also a lie. In fact, the left-leaning PolitiFact project declared it 2013’s “Lie of the Year” — conveniently not until well after Obama won reelection the year before.
In the same speech, Obama also promised the people of Portsmouth, “I won’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt.”
Since then, Obamacare has added tens of billions of dollars to the national debt, much of it thanks to the “emergency” increase in subsidies during COVID.
False claims about Obamacare have been part of the political conversation from the beginning. And the public statements from New Hampshire’s elected Democrats today show the tradition continues.
Shaheen, who brags about her efforts to add billions in enhanced Obamacare spending, has been the most aggressive member of the Granite State delegation.
“Let’s be clear what’s at stake: If Congress doesn’t extend ACA enhanced premium tax credits, the American people will be left footing the bill for soaring health care costs at a time when too many are struggling to stay afloat,” Shaheen said earlier this month.
The most interesting part of Shaheen’s statement is her acknowledgment that, despite hundreds of billions spent on the Obamacare system since 2011, Americans are still stuck with “soaring health care costs.” She’s right: Since 2010, average group health insurance premiums have increased by more than 50 percent, according to Thatch.
The question is: How much more does Shaheen expect taxpayers to spend on the “Affordable” Care Act before care becomes more affordable?
The most misleading part is her suggestion that if the COVID emergency ACA subsidies are not extended, the American people won’t “be left footing the bill” for health care.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that extending the enhanced subsidies in full would cost $350 billion over a decade.” That’s an additional $350 billion — not the cost of covering regular Obamacare.
And that’s perhaps Shaheen’s biggest deception: conflating the emergency benefits with Obamacare subsidies as a whole.
If Congress does nothing, the vast majority of Obamacare recipients will continue to get pre-emergency benefits, and low-income ACA marketplace customers will continue to pay little or nothing for their premiums.
Despite Shaheen’s claims about massive premium hikes, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), “The average marketplace premium after tax credits is projected to be $50 per month for the lowest-cost plan in 2026 for eligible enrollees.”
If Shaheen’s statements sound Obama-esque, her daughter Stefany has gone even further. In a fundraising email Thursday, she claimed, “In New Hampshire, an average family of four will see their premiums increase next year by $7,000 if the ACA tax credits are not extended.”
Setting aside the dubious $7,000 figure, the obvious fact about the “average New Hampshire family of four” is that they are not covered by Obamacare. In a state of 1.4 million residents, only about 70,000 (5 percent) are buying their health insurance through the ACA marketplace.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, the impact of ending the “emergency” subsidies will largely be felt by Americans age 55 and older with incomes above 400 percent of the poverty line — affluent early retirees who represent a fraction of overall enrollment.
These are the people Shaheen, Hassan, and their fellow Democrats shut down the government for.
Was it worth it?
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article misreported the percentage of Granite Staters getting healthcare via the ACA exchanges. The correct number is five percent. The math-challenged editors at NHJournal regret the error.
