If Republicans are hoping to make libertarian-minded opposition to healthcare reform a central part of their election campaign this fall, they’re going to have to go up against a lot of people who are reportedly alive because of a Big Government intrusion.
In celebrating the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act coming into law, a leading House Democrat touted a study that claims increased oversight of hospitals has saved tens of thousands of lives.
“The Affordable Care Act also is improving the quality of care,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday in a press conference on the steps of the US Capitol. “Eighty-seven thousand lives have been saved as the result of a 17 percent reduction in hospital-acquired conditions, such as infections, since the law was enacted.” Hoyer said this has reduced Americans total healthcare expenditures by about $20 billion.
The findings were first reported in December by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) research. According to an HHS-arm called the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, ailments suffered inside of hospitals decreased dramatically between 2010 and 2014.
A main thrust of Obamacare “was to reduce and eventually eliminate these incentives for poor quality care, while rewarding the hospitals that getter better results,” a Huffington Post article on the release of the study explained.
“Today, for example, Medicare pays less to institutions with high rates of hospital-acquired infection, injury and readmission — in other words, large numbers of patients returning to the hospital for treatment shortly after discharge,” HuffPo’s Jonathan Cohn wrote.
In March 2015, President Obama made a previous iteration of the claim made Wednesday by Hoyer.
“The work that we’ve been able to do is already spurring the kinds of changes that we had hoped for,” he said. “It’s helped reduce hospital readmission rates dramatically. It’s a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals.” The statement was rated by Politifact as “mostly true.”
The Affordable Care Act was at the forefront of another debate in Washington, before the Supreme Court. Justices heard opening arguments in a case involving rules on the provision of contraception, which are being contested by a Catholic non-profit.
