At Elite Benefits Group, it’s our job to know everything about insurance and anything that relates to it, and that includes the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Our team understands that there is a lot of misinformation floating around about Obamacare, and we are here to set the record straight so you can make informed decisions based on the facts. In this article, we’ll go over some common myths about Obamacare and provide the verified answers.
- Myth #1: Obamacare is Socialized Medicine. One of the most pervasive myths about Obamacare is that it is a form of socialized medicine, like the system in Canada. While the ACA does expand health coverage to middle-income families, most of this expansion takes place through the private insurance market.
- Myth #2: Obamacare Interferes with Your Relationship to Your Doctor. Another misconception about Obamacare is that it allows the government to determine what treatments patients can receive, instead of their doctors. The truth is that the doctor-patient relationship did not change–a third party has always been involved in the form of the insurance agent. The doctor decides what treatment is needed, and the insurance company decides how much it will cover. Sometimes the government serves as that insurance company, as it does in Medicaid, but that was true even before the ACA.
- Myth #3: Obamacare Forces You to Pay for Services You Don’t Need. A third common misconception about Obamacare is that it forces you to pay higher premiums to cover services you don’t need. The reality of any insurance plan is that some of its beneficiaries are always going to have to pay for services they will never need in order to reduce the cost of all the services for everyone, similar to how your tax contributions pay for everything from public education to the military. Even if you never need a particular health screening, you benefit from a system that offers that option to everyone.