Right Change: Obamacare’s Birthday Is the Gift That Keeps On Giving

It was just under two years ago where Nancy Pelosi uttered those famous words that will haunt her forever: “we must pass the bill to see what’s in it.” Today marks the two-year anniversary of the passage of what was ironically named the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” It was President Obama and the Democrats landmark achievement. You couldn’t tell that though, as there are no celebratory speeches planned to tout its achievements. Perhaps that’s because 72% of all Americans and 56% of Democrats  say the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional. Hold the candles, America.

It turns out, Obama’s healthcare law didn’t really protect patients and it certainly isn’t more affordable.

“The Hill:The revised estimate of the law's coverage provisions shows about 2 million fewer people gaining coverage by 2016, reducing the number of uninsured Americans by 30 million instead of the 32 million projected a year ago. That would leave about 27 million people uninsured in 2016, two years after the law's insurance exchanges go online. Four million Americans can expect to lose their employer-provided healthcare by 2016, according to the revised figures, far more than the 1 million people estimated last year. And 1 million to 2 million fewer people will gain access to the law's subsidized exchanges than first thought, while an extra 1 million are expected to qualify for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Provision (CHIP).”

“Washington Examiner: President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO's standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama's pledge that the legislation would cost "around $900 billion over 10 years." When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.

Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn't overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we're likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.”

“Fox News:  Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.”

Not only have the costs soared to the trillions and the number of uninsured to the millions, but companies are opting out of the law by the thousands.

“The Hill: The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday, bringing the total to 1,040 organizations that have been granted a one-year exemption from a new coverage requirement included in the healthcare reform law enacted almost a year ago.”

All of this muck and Obamacare is only two years old. We must repeal this law immediately or we will be stuck with it forever. The choice is yours come November 2012.

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