Sebelius Debunks Attacks On ‘Obamacare’

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Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius sets the record straight on the Affordable Care Act, responding to critiques of the law in a Tuesday Washington Post op-ed. “People are entitled to their opinions, but not to their own facts,” Sebelius writes. 

Sebelius targets three claims she says have come up again since the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the law. Among them is the idea, put forward by Mitt Romney and in numerous super PAC ads, that the law cuts Medicare benefits. 

Thanks to the law, seniors have new benefits such as free preventive care as well as discounts on brand-name medications in the “doughnut hole” coverage gap that have already saved more than 5 million people with Medicare about $600 each. Medicare Advantage premiums have fallen two years running. New crackdowns on fraud and abuse returned a record $5.4 billion to Medicare in 2010 and 2011. And the health-care law has strengthened Medicare’s long-term outlook, adding eight additional years to the projected solvency of the Medicare trust fund.

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