Who's Afraid of Obamacare? Obama

This morning's HHS “defense” of health reform read like White House talking points. But it did make one thing clear: Obama knows the health bill is a political loser.

This morning, the Department of Health and Human Services put out a “defense” of the Obama administration’s health care reforms that reads like a White House talking points memo.

The report, titled Health Insurance Premiums: Past High Costs Will Become the Present and Future Without Health Reform attempts to put a good face on a poor reform effort.  But even HHS doesn’t appear to want anyone to know they released it.  Not only did they put the report out on a Friday, it also isn’t featured on the website; instead, they have a story about fraud prevention measures.  The report is listed in the “News” box on the right side of the page below “HHS Operating and Staff Divisions.”

The report is based on CBO projections contained in a November 30, 2009 analysis of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  Today’s report though not so inconspicuously excludes a portion of that CBO analysis that suggests that the ACA’s mandate that Americans purchase more comprehensive benefit packages could ultimately lead to higher premiums.  HHS argues that their analysis paints a more complete picture of the law’s impact on premiums, but CBO used the same data in its analysis of the House’s repeal legislation, CBO concluded that:

if H.R. 2 was enacted, premiums for health insurance in the individual market would be somewhat lower than under current law, mostly because the average insurance policy in this market would cover a smaller share of enrollees’ costs for health care and a slightly narrower range of benefits.

That this pitiful argument got thrown out with the Friday trash says much about the administration’s newfound understanding that the health care law is a political loser.  The president did not energetically defend the ACA in this week’s state of the union, and it appears that the administration would rather not have anyone read this “defense” of the ACA.  Good politics, but it makes you wonder, how mistaken this law must be if not even its architect wants any part in defending it?

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