With his credibility shot, CBS News has apparently decided to not take President Obama’s latest ObamaCare promise at face value. Now that millions whom the president reassured could keep their insurance are losing it, CBS dug into Obama’s latest reassurance about the 80% not in the individual market, and also found that that’s not exactly true. The truth is that a so-called “Cadillac Tax” is about to turn millions of employer-based plans into something a little closer to a “junk plan.”
“If you’re one of the 80 percent of Americans who is insured or covered through an employer plan or through Medicare or Medicaid, or the Veterans’ Administration, there is no change for you except for an increase in benefits that everyone receives as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday.
Yet in the years to come, some workers with employer-provided benefits will see their benefits scaled back because of an Obamacare tax. That portion of the law — known as the “Cadillac tax” — isn’t set to take effect until 2018, but it’s already influencing the benefits packages that employers offer.
“Every employer plan since the passage of the health care law has been working to make sure their health care cost trends keep their plans under the ‘Cadillac tax,'” Steve Wojcik of the National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit that represents large employers, told CBSNews.com.
It is hard to tell if CBS News is just getting on the record with this report, or if the media is actually going to start doing its job with ObamaCare and give America a heads up on the fallout yet to come.
From the moment ObamaCare looked like a reality, conservative think tanks and Republican lawmakers sounded the warning that millions would lose their health insurance as a result. All the media did in response, though, was to either ignore those warnings or push back on behalf of the White House and Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
The effect ObamaCare will have on the employer-based market — over a hundred million people — is not limited to this Cadillac Tax. The White House itself estimated that tens of millions could be dropped by their employers and shoved into these ObamaCare exchanges. This could mean losing your doctor and having your health care options limited in a traumatic way, especially if you are already ill.
Though this unsettling White House report is out there, the media have yet to give it the attention deserved or to push the Administration to explain it, especially now that the president is claiming those 80% have nothing to worry about.
The carnage that has already blindsided millions of middle class families in the individual market is only the beginning of the financial chaos ObamaCare is almost certain to rain down on tens of millions who made the mistake of taking a president at his word.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.