a) The ACA Includes "Death Panels"
Around the time she resigned in the middle of her first term as Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin became the face for this lie as she and many other right-wingers tried to scare you into thinking that government bureaucrats would be making life and death decisions about your health care.
Here are the facts: Included in the ACA is voluntary counseling for those patients who are nearing the end of life. The counselors involved make no medical decisions. They discuss wills, hospice, etc. These counseling sessions are similar to those that have been included as a plan benefit under Medicare and that have received bi-partisan support.
b) The ACA Provides Insurance to Illegal Immigrants
No, the ACA explicitly denies health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants within Section 1312(f)(3) of the law. Those of you who signed up for insurance this year through one of the health exchanges already know this, as you had to provide proof of citizenship to enroll in a plan.
The idea that the ACA covers illegals is another right-wing lie designed to scare/anger you into opposing the ACA. This lie began because the original version of the ACA legislation, which never became law, wasn't clear on the treatment of illegal aliens. The far right deliberately misinterpreted this to mean illegals would be covered and began sending out viral emails to that effect.
In order to clarify this ambiguity, the final version of the ACA, which now is law, contains the following provision:
Section 1312(f)(3): "Access limited to lawful residents. If an individual is not, or is not reasonably expected to be for the entire period for which enrollment is sought, a citizen of national of the United States or an alien lawfully present in the United States, the individual shall not be treated as a qualified individual and may not be covered under a qualified health plan in the individual market that is offered through an Exchange."
(As a side note, illegals have been able to get treatment (not insurance) for life-threatening emergencies since the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, EMTALA, was signed by President Reagan in 1986. Non-emergency care is not covered by the EMTALA.)
c) The ACA Requires that a Microchip be Implanted in You
The ACA has been fully implemented for over four years now. Do you know anyone who has had a microchip implanted in them? The only people who believe this nonsense are those who get lost in the pages of the internet's conspiracy sites.
d) Medicare Benefits are Being Cut by $716b to Pay for the ACA
As Bill Clinton said at the 2012 Democratic Convention, it takes a lot of brass for Republicans to try and make this claim! We'll get to why he said that in a moment. First, here are the facts regarding this misleading Medicare claim by the far right:
While the Medicare budget is being reduced by $716 billion dollars, what the conservatives don't tell you is that this reduction does not cut one dollar from the program's benefits. Rather, the reductions are a combination of a) savings achieved by curbing waste, fraud, and abuse, primarily in the Medicare Advantage program and b) reductions in provider payments. That $716 billion is then being used to close the doughnut hole in the Medicare drug program, to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund, and to help finance the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act.
In other words, with respect to Medicare, the Obama administration is doing exactly what the Republicans like to say government should be doing: cutting waste and making government more efficient. The budget reduction did not cut Medicare benefits at all.
Furthermore, the Republicans found these reforms to be so worthwhile, they adopted the exact same reforms within their own budget proposals! Then Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), who authored the House GOP's 2013 budget plan, kept those identical $716 billion Medicare savings in his budget plan. The only difference was that the GOP plan opted to use those savings for different purposes than the Democrats did.
(Paul Ryan image from money.cnn.com)
Which gets us back to President Clinton's comments: It does take a lot of brass for Paul Ryan, or any other conservative, to say that the Obama administration wanted to cut Medicare by $716 billion when the GOP's 2013 budget plan did the exact same thing!
e) The ACA Will Cost the US Economy 2.4 Million Jobs
In February of 2014 the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a report saying that up to 2.4 million Americans may voluntarily leave their jobs over the next 10 years, now that they can get affordable health care coverage on their own. It did not say that these jobs would go away; what the CBO said was that people would leave their jobs voluntarily and that other Americans would be hired in their place.
This is not surprising since numerous studies over the years have reported that:
1) many Americans have been afraid to change jobs for fear of not having their pre-existing condition covered by a new employer's health plan and
2) many Americans, who otherwise would retire early, could not do so because they could not get or could not afford the health care coverage available to them
Since the ACA was passed, however, people cannot be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition and coverage is more affordable for retirees. Consequently, it makes sense that people will have more flexibility when it comes to changing jobs or retiring.
But the far right spin doctors didn't tell you the truth about the report. They spun it as a report saying that the ACA would result in a decrease of 2.4 million jobs in the US.
It doesn't help when the mainstream media initially picks up on the far right's spin of a story instead of presenting the facts. Fortunately, most media sources corrected themselves within a few days when people started reading what the CBO actually said. Unfortunately, though, a lot of folks probably didn't hear the follow-up stories that set the record straight.
