You mean to suggest that the woman charged with implementing the new system is a big cheerleader. I'm shocked. ;)

My normal inclination would be to pick apart the good secretary's rhetoric point by point. Instead, for the sake of brevity, I'll just dismantle the first. My trump card that I'm use her own reference. ;)

Sebelius : One claim is that the Affordable Care Act is driving up Americans’ health-care costs. The facts tell a different story.

In the decade before the law was passed, national health expenditures increased about 7 percent a year. But in the past two years, those increases have dropped to less than 4 percent per year, saving Americans more than $220 billion. And that trend is expected to continue, with health-care costs projected to stay level as a share of gross domestic product from 2009 all the way through 2013.


From her link : In 2011, national health spending is estimated to have reached $2.7 trillion, growing at the same rate of 3.9 percent observed in 2010, which is just slightly above the historically low 2009 growth rate of 3.8 percent. The low rate of estimated growth in overall health spending in 2011 largely reflects the lingering effects of the recent recession and modest recovery, which contributed to slower growth in the use of health care goods and services, slower medical price growth, reduced private health insurance enrollment, and employer efforts to control spending.
...
In 2014, national health spending is projected to rise to 7.4 percent, or 2.1 percentage-points faster than in the absence of reform, as the major coverage expansions from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are expected to result in 22 million fewer uninsured people(compared to estimates that exclude the law’s impacts).

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/Proj2011PDF.pdf

In conclusion, by the very data she is using to make her point, we can see that the recession and non-recovery is the main contributer to the fact that those increases have dropped to less than 4 percent per year.

When she claims in the past two years, those increases have dropped to less than 4 percent per year she is incorrect. The historically low drop to 3.8% actually occurred in 2009, 3 years past and prior to passage of ACA. In 2010 it rose to 3.9% and held steady in 2011. Granted this is a tiny increase, but it IS an increase.

As for her claim that trend is expected to continue...all the way through 2013, well that's just choosing an end-date to fit your story. As we see, again from her own provided source, In 2014, national health spending is projected to rise to 7.4 percent, or 2.1 percentage-points faster than in the absence of reform.

Perhaps the next time secretary Sebelius decides to write up a clearly political opinion piece she should take her own advice and stop refighting old political battles and move forward.

Of course, she could also choose to not use campaign rhetoric while setting the record straight but that would require her to not be a hypocrite which is physically impossible for a politician. ;P

>I'm still waiting for him to say something beyond 'It's a TAX! It's a TAX!" - and I'll see your 'It's a TAX!' and raise you the Secretary of HHS
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-sebelius-the-affordable-care-act-has-made-the-us-health-care-system-stronger/2012/07/09/gJQA1BOOZW_story.html
>
>>Pat Caddell is a well known Democrat, so any playbook he publically provides for Romney should elicit suspicion. However, he is also hated by the left-wing of his party because he is a call-it-like-he-sees-it pollster which frequently puts him at odds with his party.
>>
>>Here is his tactically workable and in my opinion, obvious plan for defeating Obama and the Democrats in November.
>>
>>Part I http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/09/taxes-and-trust
>>Part II http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/10/Taxes-andtrust-2
>>
>>Of course, Republicans are the stupid party so there's no way they'll be using an effective strategy just the same old guaranteed loser.
>>http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/07/rules-committee-previews-healt.php