We’ve been saying for years that President Obama was over-simplifying and over-promising when he kept saying, “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” under the new health care law. Now reality is catching up with his political spin.
Q: Does the Affordable Care Act restrict my ability to get a mammogram?
A: No. In fact, the law requires insurers to cover mammography, with no cost-sharing, every one to two years for women starting at age 40. Medicare fully pays for mammograms once every 12 months with no upper age limit.
House Speaker John Boehner exaggerated when he said the 2.3 percent medical device excise tax in the Affordable Care Act “is costing us tens of thousands of jobs that are being shipped overseas.”
Q: Will doctors be required to ask patients questions about their sexual history under the Affordable Care Act?
A: No. A program created by the stimulus law – not Obamacare — encourages health professionals to use electronic records. But there is no requirement in the program to ask anything about sexual history.
There’s plenty of fodder for fact-checkers in Sen. Ted Cruz’s looong attack on Obamacare, and in President Obama’s defense of it.
Q: Does the health care law contain a “hidden” tax on hunting and fishing equipment?
A: No. There is a 2.3 percent excise tax on certain medical devices. Cabela’s, a Nebraska sporting goods company, applied the tax to some of its customers’ purchases by mistake.
Q: Will there be forced home inspections under the Affordable Care Act?
A: No. The law provides grants for state home-visiting programs for expectant and new parents. The programs are voluntary and participants can opt out any time.
House Speaker John Boehner, among other Republicans, wrongly tweeted that a recent “study” found “74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under #Obamacare.” Actually, no more than 13 percent of the small businesses surveyed said that.
On Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Managing Editor Lori Robertson explains who would be exempt from the requirement to have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The so-called individual mandate kicks in next year, with monetary penalties for those who don’t comply. But some will be exempt from the mandate.
For more on this topic, see our June 28, 2012, Ask FactCheck, “How Much Is the Obamacare ‘Tax’?“
President Barack Obama presented a glowing but incomplete view of how much Americans can save on premiums thanks to the Affordable Care Act.