Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Obamacare Projections Reveal More Unwanted Surprises

Obamacare, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), is hundreds of pages long. To quote Nancy Pelosi, "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." I don't know about you, but I find it unsettling when a politician can't give you a straight answer. My enmity towards Obamacare subsided, but then the CBO came out with a series of reports today, and that enmity resurfaced where I decided to write this short blog entry.

One such report is the 2013 estimates regarding the ACA. In the last published projections, Obamacare was only estimated to have 3-5 million people lose their employer-based insurance. Now, that number is up to 7 million. Someone might notice that the net amount of uninsured people remains the same, and construe that as a good thing. But how is it a good thing that an extra 2-4 million people have become dependent on government for something as essential as health care?

Another surprise is the revised cost of Obamacare. Remember that Obama promised that this would only cost us about $900B. The last projection was that this would cost us $1.252T. We are now looking at it costing $1.329T. The increase is even more bothersome because with more states confirming that they will not participate in Obamacare, you'd think those numbers would have decreased, but alas, they have not.  I can imagine an Obamacare proponent saying, "Well, what's an extra $77B to you?" And you wonder how America inherited its fiscal issues. Oy gevalt!

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