Misinformation about the Affordable Care Act is a veritable industry. Editorials like one in a local newspaper (OTHER TAKES: Health insurance mandate gets costlier) are based on ideology, not economic facts, democratic principles and truth.

If polls are correct in asserting the Affordable Care Act is widely unpopular, that has less to do with flaws in the act than with the unrelenting spin against it.

Yes, the law requires people buy health insurance and penalizes those who don’t with an increasing financial fee. Rather than see that as a government-imposed burden on the uninsured, it’s recognition that people without health insurance inflict costs on society. People who are paying for health insurance are paying for people without health insurance. Even without insurance, people still access emergency rooms. Their illnesses and poor health drag down productivity and the economy. A healthy, productive work force benefits everyone.

The ACA was enacted in 2010 and some people were apoplectic that their premiums increased. The fact is their substandard health insurance plans were forced to provide adequate coverage. Rather than being grateful the bogus plans were forced to fold, the spin manipulators stepped in and had a heyday. “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” was parroted as proof the President lied. The fact is, plans were cancelled because they were woefully inadequate and people were wasting their money on them. The New York Times wrote it failed to find examples of good insurance plans that were cancelled.

With ACA, more Americans (about 17 million more) have health insurance. Children are allowed to remain on a parent’s plan until age 26. Health care providers universally talk about the value of continuum of care. With ACA, people are not excluded for pre-existing conditions and kicked out of plans when they become sick.

Before ACA, increases in health care costs were hobbling the economy. Since ACA, health care inflation has been 1.6 percent, the lowest in 50 years. The Congressional Budget Office has lowered its projected costs for federal health programs like Medicare, calculating that spending in 2020 will be $175 billion lower than projections made in 2010. ACA resulted in reduced costs and increased quality, rewarding efficiencies and improving outcomes.

According to the nonpartisan CBO, the health care legislation will reduce the federal deficit, saving $1 trillion over two decades.

Bottom line: more people have health insurance coverage; people with pre-existing conditions are not kicked off plans; people crying “rate shock” were upgraded from substandard plans to adequate plans; overall health care costs are rising at historically low rates.

The ACA is reducing the deficit. Yes, spending on subsidies for people and the cost of expanding Medicaid are additional expenses, but those dollars are more than recouped in economic growth and lower increases in health care costs.

Houston’s mistake

We’re all guilty of drawing conclusions based on “what if” thinking. That might be reasonable when “what if” thinking means households accumulate an emergency fund in case of a job layoff, but in terms of public policy “what if” thinking is a road map for discrimination.

Voters in Houston voted 61 percent to 39 percent to defeat an anti-discrimination law primarily because it would allow transgender men to use women’s restrooms. The campaign against the ordinance ran on “what if” transgender people are child molesters. That “what if” thinking is not based on science or research and was used to sway voters to defeat the anti-discrimination measure. Child molesters should be prosecuted. Transgender people should have equal rights guaranteed under the law.

Clare Howard