MSNBC’s Ali Velshi continues to do what journalists should have done in 2009 and throughout out the inception and execution of the Affordable Care Act aka ACA aka Obamacare. If they had done their jobs, health insurance would be less expensive as the obstruction from Republicans and Corporatist Democrats would have been mitigated.
Velshi continues to be a stalwart of a news anchor and journalist as he lay waste Republican Obamacare lies and many others. Ali Velshi, over the last several months, has been methodically debunking Republicans on his several programs, making them seem like the inexcusable misinformers that they are.
- Ali Velshi destroys lying GOP Congressman as he schools him on Trumpcare (VIDEO
- MSNBC Ali Velshi exposes GOP Rep’s ignorance on health care, taxes, & Canada (VIDEO)
- Ali Velshi destroys a flustered Fmr. Sen. Tom Coburn with pesky health care facts (VIDEO)
- Paul Ryan called out by Ali Velshi for lying CBO report at briefing (VIDEO)
- MSNBC Ali Velshi busted several big lies about our healthcare system (VIDEO)
- MSNBC Ali Velshi’s real journalism slams Congressman’s Obamacare lies in real time (VIDEO)
In some of the above videos, Ali Velshi made it clear that the market just does not work in health insurance. I explained that reality in my article titled “Stop treating health insurance as a product lest nothing changes” that every one should read.
Republicans are claiming that Obamacare is in a death spiral. Their intent is to scrap it and return to the health insurance days of yesteryears, pre-Obamacare, where insurance companies could rescind one’s policies when they started using it on pretenses, cap policies leaving customers in bankruptcy, charging women more than men, denying coverage for mental and drug problems, and much more.
The attempt to fit health insurance into a market system caused the failure points within Obamacare. It is utterly inefficient for all the reasons I explain in the piece above. Velshi in the excerpted video below debunks the Republican lie that Obamacare is in a death spiral. Even the CBO has debunked the death spiral lie they continue to tell.
Ali Velshi Debunks Obamacare Death Spiral Lie
“Republicans are wrong,” Ali Velshi said. “Obamacare is not in a death spiral. The health law’s signal achievement has been to reduce the number of Americans who don’t have health insurance. America’s uninsured went from forty-nine million in 2010 to twenty-eight-million in 2016 in large part because of the individual mandate requiring all to get health coverage. Millions of America’s poor who couldn’t afford coverage and millions more with illnesses who couldn’t find an insurer to cover them benefited. The vast majority of Americans whether they’re in employer plans or Medicaid expanded roles are doing just fine or are better off under Obamacare. But a significant few are worse off.”
Velshi explains the real reasons premiums have shot up.
“Health premiums have shot up more than expected especially in the individual market affecting twenty-one million people which by the way represents just seven percent of Americans with health insurance,” Velshi said. “An even smaller segment within the individual market, lower to middle-income Americans who aren’t poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but make too much to receive insurance subsidies and aren’t old enough for Medicare have been crushed by Obama care premiums. That doesn’t make for a death spiral. But it’s clear that Obama cares insurance mandate isn’t robust enough. The incentive for America’s young and healthy to sign up and stay covered has been weak because of ever rising premiums. An estimated two million Americans have already dropped their coverage this year alone. They’ve decided it’s cheaper to pay the six hundred and ninety-five dollar penalty for an individual or 2.5 percent of income for a household than to purchase health coverage. That means the risk pool meant to share costs across the population has been skewed by a higher proportion of older and sick patients. Add to that the secondary problem of insurers pulling out of medical exchanges in some states and you can see why Republicans harp on Obamacare.”
Ali Velshi points out that it is the Republicans through their sabotage who would cause a death spiral.
“But what Republicans don’t talk about is the uncertainty they’re creating trying to repeal the law and the threats to cut funding and hold back subsidy payments,” Ali Velshi said. “Those subsidies were promised to insurance companies to ease the pain to their bottom line as they insure less profitable people. Now cutting those would create a death spiral.”
It is important that as Republicans continue to lie to Americans that we get this information to them. Please share. Educate and resist my friends.