It has become really popular for people to “share” images that have text on them on their Facebook pages. Don’t assume that these eye-catching images contain factual information. The one going around that states that Medicare premiums are going to increase due to the Affordable Care Act is false.
You may have heard the phrase: “a picture paints a thousand words”. People today are busy, and most are not interested in taking the time to sit down and read those thousand words. It only takes a second to look at a picture. This is probably why it has become so popular to post a beautiful or eye-catching image, with a few lines of text printed over it, onto a Facebook page.
Posting an image of a cute kitten is harmless, (and adorable). Unfortunately, the trend has spread in a very harmful way. People are now posting graphics and images that are designed to scare people into voting against a particular political candidate. I strongly advise that you take the time to fact check these kinds of images-with-text that you find on Facebook in order to discern the truth from the misinformation.
For example, today I saw one of these images that said that the cost of Medicare premiums was going to increase due to Obamacare The exact image I saw had been photo shopped to include the name and logo of a popular health insurance company. I believe this was in an effort to make this “urban legend” appear more factual than it actually was.
The Facebook thing specifically said that the cost of the Medicare premium would increase every year between now and 2014. It said that in 2014 it would cost $247.00. The image I saw was trying to appear as though a popular insurance company had sent a letter to a customer that stated that this was the increase he should expect due to Obamacare.
A little bit of fact checking proved this image to be nothing more than misinformation. First of all, insurance companies who are required to send out letters to their customers about changes from the Affordable Care Act use the real name of the law, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They don’t use the word “Obamacare” because that is not the name of the law they are following by making changes.
Secondly, Medicare Part A and Part B are not something a person gets from a private insurance company. A senior who reaches age 65 automatically is enrolled in Medicare Part A through the federal government. Generally speaking, they will also be enrolled in Part B at the same time. There would be no reason for a private insurance company to be sending people a letter about the changes to their Medicare premium for Part A or Part B. It would come from a letter from the Social Security Office instead.
FactCheck.org notes that this particular piece of misinformation has been passed around since 2010. It was originally intended to confuse people into thinking that Congress gave itself a $3,000 a month Cost Of Living Adjustment (when it didn’t), and attempts to connect this (false) idea to the cause of increase in the cost of Medicare premiums.
Now, someone has changed the story in an attempt to connect the increase in premiums to the Affordable Care Act. In reality, the projected cost of Medicare premiums in 2014 will be $117.10, and not the $247.00 that the Facebook fiction wants people to believe.
Image by birgerking on Flickr