However, the Affordable Care Act actually locks lawmakers and their staffers out of the federal government’s group health plan and instead puts them into state insurance exchanges.
Herndon recognized the public was finding it difficult to accept that Obamacare would bring health-care costs down. So to avoid a conversation on costs, Herndon suggested what it called a “long-term effort to ‘move’ the public along by focusing the conversation on specific benefits of the law that will most affect them.”
On Medicare, Herndon concocted two key selling points: “The law protects Medicare and provides preventive care with no co-pay.”
In actuality, it has been widely reported that the government is scaling back Medicare funding to help defray the costs of Obamacare, with the likely loss of some benefits while raising premiums.
In one immediate ramification, the country’s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans, UnitedHealth Group, said it will need to reduce the number of doctors in its network nationally by 10 to 15 percent in the next year alone.
For those who say they don’t trust the government, Herndon posits the best response “is one that says the law requires us all (consumers, doctors and nurses, hospitals, insurance companies) to take responsibility and play by fair rules.”
“Our government is a government for all the people, not just for the privileged,” Herndon recommends saying.
However, that talking point may surprise critics of what has been described as waivers of some provisions of the health-care law for a number of businesses and unions. The Department of Health and Human Services allowed lower annual caps on the total amount of medical bills some firms and unions pay for each subscriber. Reportedly the temporary waivers were offered to 722 businesses, 417 groups of small employers bound by collective bargaining agreements, and 34 unions.