With his jacket off and sleeves rolled up, House Speaker Paul Ryan made the case for the Republican health care law Thursday, walking through a 35-minute PowerPoint presentation to a packed crowd of reporters and millions of viewers watching on the three cable TV networks. It was quintessential Ryan, calmly explaining the details of the American Health Care Act looking more like a college professor than a professional politician.
But in making his case, Ryan made a series of misleading statements, both about the current state of Obamacare and the details of the replacement bill. Three stand out:
1. Cherry-picking premium costs. The numbers Ryan cited are scary: Premiums for a benchmark plan in the ACA marketplace rose 59 percent in Minnesota this year, 53 percent in Pennsylvania, 63 percent in Tennessee, 58 percent in Alabama, 69 percent in Oklahoma and 51 percent in Nebraska. “Arizona,” he said, “clocked in at a 116 percent increase in their health insurance premiums with Obamacare.”
His numbers aren’t wrong—they come from a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, released last fall. But Ryan is cherry-picking the states with the highest premium increases. He doesn’t mention that premiums rose just 2 percent in New Hampshire, 5 percent in New Jersey, 2 percent in Ohio or 2 percent in Arkansas. In Indiana and Massachusetts, premiums actually fell. He also doesn’t mention that Americans are often protected from those rising premium increases by their subsidies, which increase as premiums rise. That’s not free—the extra cost is borne by taxpayers—but it draws an inaccurate picture of how premium hikes are actually hitting enrollees nationwide.
