Reality has yet to intrude on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ world. She is testifying on Obamacare before the Senate today. And she said that Obamacare, which is causing sticker shock and massive disruption in the health insurance market for millions of Americans, has brought premiums down.
Really. But you have to pick away at the fine print, which Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) does.
Sebelius told Sen. Crapo, “In the marketplace the rates have come in about 16% lower than what the Congressional Budget Office projected them to be.”
Crapo replied, “That is not lower than actual fact.”
To which Sebelius gamely attempted, “Those were projections of the rates so the rates were lower. Much like we have heard the projections around Medicare Part D.”
By that reasoning, the Obama government missed a real opportunity. It should have projected insurance rates without Obamacare to increase trillion percent. Then, anything coming in below that after Obamacare could have been dubbed a decrease.
Crapo wasn’t buying it. “Are you saying in the individual markets, insurance rates are going down?”
That finally got something approximating truth from Sebelius: “I did not say they were going down, I said the rates are lower than was predicted, and for millions of people in the market a will for the first time ever have financial help.”
That “financial help” is taxpayer subsidized, of course, so one person’s subsidy is another person’s tax bill.
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