Melanie Hunter-Omar
CNSNews.com
3/10/2010
(CNSNews.com) – Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Wednesday contradicted President Barack Obama on whether the health care reform bill will lead to a decrease in health care premiums.
Durbin claimed that rates would go up, while the president said the rates would go down.
“Anyone who would stand before you and say well, if you pass health care reform, next year’s health care premiums are going down, I don’t think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up, but what we are trying to do is slow the rate of increase,” Durbin said, speaking on the Senate floor.
Compare Durbin’s remarks to what President Barack Obama said during a speech at Arcadia University in Glenside, Pa., on Monday.
“Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion over the next decade because we’re spending our health care dollars more wisely,” the president said.
“Those aren’t my numbers. Those aren’t my numbers –they are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress for what things cost,” Obama added.
But as CNSNews.com reported, the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the final Senate health care bill indicates that it would impose a mandatory $15,000 annual fee on middle-class families that earn greater than 400 percent annually of the federal poverty level. That means $88,200 for a family of four.
Among the five basic facts that the CBO analysis cites about the bill is that “Your family insurance plan – if your employer drops your coverage and you are forced to buy it on your own – will cost about $15,000 per year when the legislation is in full force in 2016.”
