Do you have a relative that likes to send you email of things that are being passed around the internet? Maybe you have a Facebook friend that posts on their page the same sort of thing that your relative is sending you by email. In every case, check the facts. Not everything you read online is true, especially if it is about health insurance.
Today, I was scrolling through the “news” portion of my Facebook page. I have some Facebook friends that tend to post what essentially are “urban legends”. These are the sorts of posts, or emails, that are poorly written, and are forwarded, or shared, word for word without any changes being made to them. They usually are designed to make a particular political candidate look bad.
It is wise to take a minute or two, do a google search, and find out if these sorts of emails are actually true before you decide to believe them. Today, I saw on Facebook that one of my friends had posted what is called “The $64,000 Question”. This one implies that President Obama feels that the Affordable Care Act is not good enough for his family to get their health insurance from.
The original email is written in all caps, with several punctuation and grammatical errors. It reads:
“FINALLY SOMEONE ASKED HIM THE QUESTION!
ON “ABC-TV” DURING THE “NETWORK SPECIAL ON HEALTH CARE”….. OBAMA WAS ASKED:
“MR. PRESIDENT WILL YOU AND YOUR FAMILY GIVE UP YOUR CURRENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAM AND JOIN THE NEW ‘UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROGRAM’ THAT THE REST OF US WILL BE ON ????”
THERE WAS A STONEY SILENCE AS OBAMA IGNORED THE QUESTION AND CHOSE NOT TO ANSWER IT !!! IN ADDITION, A NUMBER OF SENATORS WERE ASKED THE SAME QUESTION AND THEIR RESPONSE WAS.”WE WILL THINK ABOUT IT.”
AND THEY DID. IT WAS ANNOUNCED TODAY ON THE NEWS THAT THE “KENNEDY HEALTH CARE BILL” WAS WRITTEN INTO THE NEW HEALTH CARE REFORM INITIATIVE ENSURING THAT THAT CONGRESS WILL BE 100% EXEMPT !
SO, THIS GREAT NEW HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS GOOD FOR YOU AND I… IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR OBAMA, HIS FAMILY OR CONGRESS…??
WE (THE AMERICAN PUBLIC) NEED TO STOP THIS PROPOSED DEBACLE ASAP !!!! THIS IS TOTALLY WRONG !!!!! PERSONALLY, I CAN ONLY ACCEPT A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL THAT EXTENDS TO EVERYONE… NOT JUST US LOWLY CITIZENS…. WHILE THE WASHINGTON “ELITE” KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THEIR GOLD-PLATED HEALTH CARE COVERAGES.”
Here are the facts:
“The $64,000 Question” was the name of a game show. That number has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act.
The television program on ABC that Obama was on was called “Questions for the President: Prescription for America”. It aired in 2009. The Affordable Care Act, as we know it today, in 2012, did not yet exist.
Obama was never asked “Will you and your family give up your current health care program and join the new “Universal Health Care Program” that the rest of us will be on?”
The Kennedy Health Care Bill is remarkably similar to the ACA. It was written in 2009, (not “today”), and signed into law in 2010. It includes things like: the medical loss ratio (that requires health insurers to spend 80% of the money they get from premiums on actual health care), the beginnings of the closing of the Medicare “donut hole”, and the creating of state health insurance exchanges, to name a few things. It says nothing about Congress being “exempt” from the Affordable Care Act.
Image by Jeffrey Beall on Flickr