Governor Bobby Jindal puts Obamacare in context, and finds it vastly wanting in terms of economics and jobs
(Politico) The verdict is in, and it’s not good: Obamacare is rippling through the U.S. economy with vast implications for American prosperity.
On Friday, we learned that the Obama economy has hit stall speed, with a paltry 113,000 jobs added in January.
Two days earlier, we learned the president’s health care law is discouraging Americans from working, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The report makes for bracing reading. The law will reduce the labor supply by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers, the CBO says — up from an estimated 800,000 just three years ago.
It gets worse. The CBO also concluded that the law’s “expanded Medicaid eligibility … will, on balance, reduce incentives to work.†Think about that: Obamacare is giving low-income Americans fewer reasons to work — to find and pursue the jobs that could transform their lives and the lives of those around them. The president talks a lot about tackling inequality. But his health care law is a recipe for increasing inequality, not decreasing it.
Let’s not forget that the same CBO report states that by 2024 there will still be 31 million uninsured. Wasn’t the entire idea, as proposed by Democrats, and Democrats only, that Obamacare will create a scenario where the 30 million folks without health insurance would be able to obtain it? How many Democrats told us that, both before and after passage? Nancy Pelosi said we have to pass it to find out what’s in it. Well, we’ve found that it doesn’t decrease the uninsured rate. Only 11% of Obamacare signups are people who were without insurance. And they’re destroying the jobs market at the same time as they fail in the main point of Obamacare.
Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion doesn’t just discourage work; it also prioritizes coverage for able-bodied adults over the needs of persons with disabilities. That’s a dirty little secret the Obama administration and its liberal allies, in their rush to expand government-funded health coverage to millions more Americans, won’t tell you. And it’s yet another reason why states should resist the siren song of the administration and its leftist supporters, who plan to spend 2014 persuading them to embrace the expansion.
Oh, come on, Bobby, how are people going to go out and become poets and basket weavers, following their dreams? The Medicaid expansion is actually one of the big points of Jindal’s piece, as it discourages able bodied Americans from working while expanding coverage to them while those with disabilities, who actually do need the help, are waiting and waiting and waiting
That’s not compassionate — just the opposite, in fact. So while the president’s advisers ask why states aren’t expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, I have another question for President Obama: Why is expanding Medicaid to cover millions of working-age Americans a bigger priority than giving access to hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities waiting for care?
Democrats want more people beholden to and under the control of the Federal Government. They aren’t compassionate: they’re drunk with power, and want a Big Government along Progressive (nice fascism) lines.
BTW, humorously, the White House webpage that discusses Obamacare is termed “Health Care that Works for Americans“. Despite it being a drag on the jobs market. It also still includes the line about keeping your insurance, the lie of the year.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Read: Jindal: Obamacare Is Not Compassionate »
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