Truth and Myths
Myth: Health reform will take away the health insurance you get through your employer and replace it with government-run medicine.
Truth: Under all the plans passed by Congressional committees, if you're satisfied with your job-based coverage, you can keep it. Employers who don't offer insurance would either start to provide it or contribute to a fund that helps employees buy it on their own. Some small businesses would be eligible for subsidies to offset the cost. And every policy would offer at least a standard, easy-to-understand, comprehensive set of benefits.
Myth: Health reform is too costly and will bankrupt the country.
Truth: The biggest cost we’ll face is if we do nothing. Under the status quo, health care costs have been rising at three times the rate of inflation. The amount we spend on health care could increase from $2.4 trillion per year to $4.4 trillion by 2018 if nothing is done to rein in expenses. Healthcare reform will pay for itself over the long run by cutting down on waste, overhead, and price gouging, reducing preventable errors, and ending big subsidies to private insurance companies.
Myth: Illegal immigrants will be provided with free health insurance at taxpayer expense.
Truth: Opponents of health reform are using divisive rhetoric in their desperate attempt to block health reform. The bills approved by various Congressional committees explicitly prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving federally-subsidized health insurance. Current law already prohibits the undocumented from participating in government healthcare programs.
Myth: Healthcare reform will hurt Medicare.
Truth: None of the healthcare reform proposals being considered in Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase seniors’ out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services. Instead, the proposals would eliminate billions of dollars in taxpayer overpayments to insurance companies that do nothing for patients and only boost insurers’ profits. Healthcare reform will protect seniors' access to their doctors, reduce the cost of preventive services, and lower the prescription drug costs for people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap or "doughnut hole" so they can get better afford the drugs they need. Healthcare reform will also reduce costly, preventable hospital readmissions, saving patients and Medicare money. So rather than weaken Medicare, healthcare reform will strengthen the financial status of the Medicare program.
Myth: Government-run death panels will decide which seniors live or die.
Truth: Healthcare reform will NOT give the government the power to make life-and-death decisions for anyone regardless of their age. Those decisions will be made by individuals, their doctor and their family. Healthcare reform isn't about putting the government in charge of difficult end-of-life decisions. It's about giving individuals and families the option to talk with their doctors in advance about difficult choices every family faces when loved ones near the end of their lives.
More answers to the myths about healthcare reform can be found at the links below: