REBUTTAL
A recent analysis and commentary piece on Rep. August Pfluger’s proposed “MACA” health care initiative received a response from the congressman’s chief of staff, John Byers, wherein he accuses this writer of introducing falsehoods into the report, prompting him to set the record straight.
After quoting the paragraph about healthcare experts being in agreement about the “Big, Beautiful Bill” being the driving force for insurance premiums rising sharply for 24 million Americans, Mr. Byers says definitively — “Completely false” — before telling readers “Insurance premiums have been going up since Obamacare was implemented. Premiums are up on average 67% for single coverage and 74% for family coverage since, despite President Obama’s political promise of premium decreases,” which completely fails to speak to the assertion in question.
Here is a list of just a few of the hundreds of news stories on this subject with original sources.
- KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION
- CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION
- GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
- US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
Rather than address the larger issue referenced by that section of the report, Byers spends three paragraphs whinging about COVID credits, with regurgitated allegations of fraud and abuse, which always accompany Republican messages, and more B.S. rhetoric about Democrats.
Byers complains about “falsehoods” but brings few facts to the discussion, other than mentioning some Government Accounting Office figures saying: “$21 billion of the credits went completely unverified, 58,000 deceased beneficiaries in 2023 received benefits, and another 275,000 Americans in 2024 were involuntarily enrolled. Keeping fraudulent subsidies would not be sound public policy.”
We think it’s noteworthy, and quite telling, that this group’s all-encompassing concern about fraud and abuse suddenly evaporates if the discussion turns to Paycheck Protection Program loans given out to thousands of wealthy business owners who didn’t really qualify for them, but had them forgiven anyway.
According to a 2023 fraud alert from Oversight.gov, “the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee identified 69,323 questionable Social Security Numbers used to obtain $5.4 billion from the Small Business Administration’s COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Paycheck Protection Program,” which provided nearly $1.2 trillion in assistance to small businesses and their employees during the pandemic.
(According to government figures, 97 percent of PPP loans were forgiven.)
Byers next takes issue with my postulate that capitalism has been the diving force behind increasing healthcare costs over the last four decades, and he counters by reiterating his tired talking point: “Democrats and Obamacare turned American health care into what it is today.”
Mr. Byers seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that healthcare prices were flat before Obamacare came along. They were not.
In the long-term, healthcare costs have been rising dramatically for the last 45 years, with total personal spending increasing more than 1,600 percent — from around $214 billion in 1980, to an estimated $3.7 trillion in 2020, according to information from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Per-person costs rose from $932 to more than $11,000 annually during that same period.
This significantly outpaced general inflation, which rose about 261 percent during that period.
In the nearer-term, U.S. healthcare costs for families have nearly tripled from 2000 to 2020, while overall health spending grew more than 200 percent.
In the short-term, U.S. personal healthcare spending has grown, on average, by around 4- to 5-percent annually in the years between 2014 and 2024, the period when ACA requirements have been in effect.
Mr. Byers also seems to be under the impression that we are trying to sell Obamacare to the people. We are not.
But we certainly aren’t in favor of snatching people’s healthcare coverage out from under them with only a hare-brained scheme to take its place.
(A plan several experts say could possibly collapse the whole system, by the way.)
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Byers then goes on to confusingly agree with us about corporate greed before transitioning to his closing.
Treating our statement: “The idea that every problem in America was caused by somebody other than Republicans is feeble and childish” as a falsehood, Byers writes:
“This sort of deeply partisan statement is so hyperbolic you see how divided our country has become.
“Really? Every single thing is the fault of Republicans? Good grief how does one have a good faith debate with someone like that who ignores 12 of the last 17 years were the Obama and Biden policies.”
Of Note: At no point did I suggest that “every single thing is the fault of the Republicans.”
Also, the original press release about the Republican plan was rather heavily laden with language Mr. Byers seems to consider “deeply partisan” and “hyperbolic.”
