Senator Grassley, along with eight other Republican senators on the Senate finance committee, sent a letter to President Obama voicing their opposition to creating a public health insurance option. In their letter they dramatically misstate the conclusion of a study by the Lewin Group.
The letter states, “actuaries at the Lewin Group ave concluded that such a plan open and offering Medicare-level reimbursement rates, would result in 119.1 million Americans losing their private coverage. The term “losing” is a completely distortion of the facts.
The Lewin Group concluded that a public plan structure like Medicare would be dramatically cheaper than private insurance and as a result people would choose to purchase it instead. Saying that millions of Americans would “lose” their private coverage is like saying that satellite TV service has caused millions of Americans to lose their cable TV service. Individuals decided to abandon cable TV and choose satellite TV instead. They choose satellite because they preferred its services or its price. They did not lose their cable TV service.
The repeated pattern of Republicans lying and distorting the basic fact about the health care debate will make bipartisanship impossible. It is clear from their statements that Senator Grassley, and the rest of the GOP senators, have no desire to negotiate in good faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment