Shane Osborn: Harry Reid Should Stop Lying About Obamacare

Shane Osborn: Harry Reid Should Stop Lying About Obamacare

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stood on the Senate floor recently and feigned outrage over the “horror stories” being told about ObamaCare, unequivocally stating that “all of them are untrue.”  Reid’s comments are disparate from reality and have come to represent exactly how disconnected he is from the plight of the American people.

It is no secret that the Affordable Care Act is having damaging consequences throughout our country.  Every day there is a new story about someone losing their coverage and access to doctors with many facing skyrocket costs. Even The New York Times has reported that “cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance.”  The private sector has been hit hard by ObamaCare with companies facing sometimes as much as triple the healthcare costs or alternatively being forced to lay off droves of employees. In short, the Affordable Care Act is simply unaffordable. 

In my home state of Nebraska, the situation has become untenable. Forbes is predicting that individuals in Nebraska will face an average premium increase of 74 percent, the eighth largest in the country. Moreover, ObamaCare has compounded the problem by severely limiting access to healthcare, so much so that nine insurance companies reportedly pulled out of Nebraska’s medical insurance market, some of them specifically citing ObamaCare as the reason for their withdrawal. It does not take an expert to know that the state of healthcare in Nebraska is in dire condition under this deeply flawed law.

President Obama and his Democrat allies are waging a desperate campaign to save face, searching high and low for any positive spin, while downplaying negative stories documenting how the law is hurting everyday Americans. The President has made some changes, for instance, delaying the enforcement of the health insurance mandate for both medium and large sized companies. Yet, the efforts are clearly politically motivated coming as the election season gears up and are anything but sincere. In addition, he is abusing his authority making changes to a law that even Democrats believe require legislative approval.

And now Senator Reid, the president’s lapdog, is doing his part in the misinformation campaign by unfairly lashing out with spectacular impunity against anyone who criticizes the law, claiming Americans’ stories are universally false. 

But the truth of the matter is that Senator Reid is the one being dishonest as he participated in the lie of the year telling Americans the healthcare law “means making sure you can keep your family’s doctor or keep your health care plan if you like it.”  This has proven to be patently false and the Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact declared that a very similar statement made by President Obama was most untruthful of 2013. 

Senator Reid can continue lying to his colleagues and the American people telling them that stories by fellow citizens concerning their suffering under ObamaCare are fabricated, but I can assure you that when I arrive in the U.S. Senate, I will not stand for it. 

In Washington, I will stand up to people like Senator Reid and give a voice to the people of Nebraska and the victims of ObamaCare.  I will fight to repeal and replace this travesty that, contrary to Mr. Reid’s opinion, has resulted in too many horror stories to count.

Osborn is former Nebraska State Treasurer and served in the U.S. Navy.  He is a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

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