Video Special: If Buying Coffee Were Like Obamacare
By David Pittman, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today // January 16, 2014
BLACK IN A PAPER CUP DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE
ABOVE VIDEO: The Federalist Papers Project takes a humorous look at what it would be like to buy coffee if your purchase was governed by Obamacare.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A post by David Pittman, Washington Correspondent for MedPage Today, on his blog “Pay and Practice,” caught my eye and provided a much-needed humorous interlude from the daily deluge of Obamacare coverage.
I assure you that Mr. Pittman’s and MedPage Today’s coverage of the Affordable Care Act over the past three years has been bipartisan, and in the article posted below in it’s entirety he makes it very clear that the video (see above) he highlights was produced by a conservative organization and he counters by including several links to national ACA resources for his readers’ edification.
MEDPAGE TODAY–The headline on the YouTube video is catchy: “What it would be like to buy coffee if it was like Obamacare.”
What follows is a 3-minute-30-second animated parody featuring a gentleman trying to purchase a large cup of black coffee; he is told it will cost him $743.
The cartoon character is told that the high price is because of “minimum essential coffee benefits” the store is required to provide.
It’s not a great analogy to compare buying coffee with buying health insurance. As one YouTube commenter put it, “Prior to this Obamacare-style coffee, the coffee shops weren’t bankrupting you with coffee bill copays and/or declining your coffee coverage due to preexisting caffeine conditions.”
Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits aren’t causing insurance to jump from $5 a month to more than $700. Also, the minimum penalty to not carry insurance in 2014 is $95 — not $500 as the video states.
The video, produced by the conservative website The Federalist Papers, may not raise the level of debate on the ACA. But for more information on health insurance under the ACA, feel free to visit Healthcare.gov, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the American Medical Association, or a number of other sources.
Here is some MedPage Today coverage on the ACA’s essential health benefits and expected out-of-pocket costs because of the law.
