Here’s some food for thought for all those out there who remain of the opinion that the Republicans are doing nothing more than spinning their wheels with their effort to defund Obamacare. The reasons why this needs to be done are as plentiful as they are apparent. First, let’s begin with what was one of most vivid and concrete campaign promises we heard uttered by Barry the candidate. It was when he made the solemn pledge on June 5, 2008: "In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year….. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States." Well, as they say, truth is very often stranger than fiction. Unfortunately, the experts working for Medicare’s actuary have again reported that in its first 10 years, Obamacare will boost healthcare spending by "roughly $621 billion" above the amounts Americans would have spent had this horrendous law never been enacted.
And I can almost hear you all asking, "What might this mean for your typical family of four." I mean, after all, $621 Billion is an amount a little hard to comprehend. Most folks, I assume, might be interested in finding out how this number translates over to a typical American family, the very family that candidate Barry promised would actually see $2,500 in annual savings and as far as the eye could see. Well, you take the latest year-by-year projections and divide by the projected population and then multiply the result by 4. Sounds simple, right? Anyway, this approach allows us to see just how badly Barry’s promise, one more on a long list of many, fell far short of his mark. Between 2014 and 2022, the increase in national health spending, which the Medicare actuaries specifically attribute to the law, amounts to $7,450 per family of 4. What, you say? No way, you say? Yes way!
So now we’ll have to hope that this family, and millions others like it, hasn’t already spent or borrowed the $22,500 in savings that they might have expected over this same period had they taken candidate Barry’s promise at face value. But in truth, no intelligent American ever should have believed such an absurd promise, especially coming from such an unseemly character as Barry. At the time, even Factcheck.org charitably deemed this claim as being "overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers." Yet rather than learn from his mistakes, Barry "Almighty," as recently as July 16, 2012, essentially doubled-down on his promise, assuring small business owners "your premiums will go down." He made this assertion despite the fact that in three separate reports between April 2010 and June 2012, the Medicare actuaries had demonstrated that the ACA would increase healthcare spending.
But hold your horses folks, because with the arrival of 2014 things get much worse when that burden increases ten-fold. Because as it turns out, the average family of 4 has only had to face a relatively modest burden from Obamacare over the past four years, or just a little over $125. Unfortunately, this year’s average burden ($66) will be 10 times as large in 2014 when Obamacare fully kicks in in earnest. And it will rise for two years after that, after which it hit a steady-state level of just under $800 a year. Of course, all these figures are in nominal dollars. In terms of today’s purchasing power, this annual amount will rise steadily. In the interests of fair and honest reporting, perhaps it’s now time for the mainstream media to begin using "Affordable" Care Act whenever reference is made to this terribly misguided law. Doing so would make it all the more apparent how this law is actually anything but.
Anyone is obviously welcome to take exception to the numbers of the Medicare actuary, and I’m sure most Democrats, being the ones who dreamed this whole thing up, will. But it’s difficult to challenge their central conclusion, Obamacare will not save Americans one penny now or in the future. And perhaps voters could better serve themselves by being just a little less eager to believe politicians making such grandiose claims and a little more eager to protect their wallets. Until then, let’s spare strapped Americans from having to find $657 in spare change between their couch cushions next year. Let’s defund this Rube Goldberg device known as Obamacare, and set to work on removing the government from the healthcare business. For a nation with the most complicated and expensive health system on the planet, making it even more complicated and even more expensive is just a dumb idea.
The ridding ourselves of Obamacare has got to remain our top priority despite all of the naysayers telling us that we’re only wasting our time. They are cowards and, obviously, they’re afraid of a fight. All they seem to be worried about are their own worthless backsides. Every American should now be screaming at the top of their lungs in support of the Republican effort to defund this catastrophic law. And we should view a government shutdown, if it comes, as being a very small price to pay for ridding ourselves of it. We need to stay on top of guys like Boehner and Cantor so they don’t go squishy on us, as well, we need to stay in constant contact with our own members of Congress. We cannot afford to let up for a second, this is simply too important of an issue. So much depends on our being able to erase this horrible law, and to replace it with something that genuinely improves our healthcare system and completely removes the government from having any control of it.
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