Remember back to the beginning of the long, long idiocy of passing Obamacare: the talking points of the day were to make sure that the 30-45 million uninsured were provided with health insurance. Then, over the following 10 months of ignoring the economic conditions, Democrats trotted out the travesty that is Obamacare, which is still wildly unpopular as a whole. And late Wednesday we learned
(Washington Times) Congress‘ official scorekeeper said Wednesday that 30 million people will be uninsured when President Obama’s health care law goes fully into effect, including six million Americans who are expected to pay a tax penalty — about two million more than originally forecast when the law was passed in 2010.
After initially predicting that the law would leave just 21 million lacking health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office has raised its estimate, blaming the slow economy, changes Congress has made to the law and states who said they’ll refuse to expand their Medicaid programs after the Supreme Court said they don’t have to.
So, Obama care essentially failed to help the people it was supposed to help, while taxing/penalizing even more. And therein lies one of the numerous problems with Obamacare: it failed to focus on making health insurance affordable and instead focused more on health care, penalties for non-coverage, employers, getting more money for the Central government, and putting more people into government programs.
The upside for the government is that it will collect more revenue to help pay for the health care law. With two million more Americans expected to pay the penalty, the CBO predicted $3 billion more in collections each year — about $7 billion in 2016, and $8 billion a year thereafter.
But the new projections could also undermine a key goal of President Obama in the new health care law, which aimed to extend coverage to most Americans.
“For years, the president and his Democrat allies in Congress have sworn up and down that failing to comply with the individual mandate did not result in a tax on individuals or families,†said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “Now the nonpartisan CBO makes clear that the tax will hit 6 million Americans — mainly middle-class individuals and families.â€
So, what you have is a system that will actually reduce care for Americans, bring rationing to the country, put more money in the hands of the Central Government through taxes/penalties, cause employers to dump their insurance plans, put government in charge of quite a few American’s health plans, and, still not cover the people the legislation was supposed to cover.
As Dan Riehl writes: The devil is always in the details … to be revealed later. They had to pass it to see what was in it. Now, we’re finding out.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.