Obamacare is a Budget Buster and Obama Knows This

Many liberals are touting the report from the CBO claiming that Obamacare reduces the deficit.  Most of these liberals are not that dumb, but they think you are. Just for a minute let’s assume the analysis of the CBO is 100% accurate , the Medicare cuts happen , the taxes are collected as planned, and the number of people losing employer coverage is only 4 million people as the CBO projects.  Even if all this is true Obamacare would still the biggest threat to solving our fiscal problems.

The reason for this is obvious.  The massive increase in the numbers of people dependent on the government would greatly lower support for responsible spending reforms. Currently we can see from the polls Obama has at least 47% support for his clear plan to stick his head in the sand and pretend we do not have a problem.  Obamacare would push support for waiting for a fiscal disaster, rather than deal with our issues over the 50% mark. This might be great for the Democratic Party as they could be openly socialist and abandoned attempts to pretend they care about anyone who pays income taxes and has health insurance. Democrats would be ensured to be in power to manage the fiscal crash. Nice if all you care about is the Democratic party, but not so nice if you care about this nation.

However if you believe the answer from CBO represents reality you probably still believe in the tooth fairy.  The first issue is that $500 Billion comes from cuts to Medicare. We can’t even agree to keep past cuts in Medicare which we avoid by passing the “Doc Fix” legislation. The main plan is to have a board of 15 people determine what services seniors will be denied. The main plan is to have a board of 15 people determine what services seniors will be denied. Will that really happen as planned? Obama is hiding his elimination of Medicare advantage by using demonstration program money.  He does not want seniors to see that when they enroll this fall. If we really had acceptable plans to cut the money from Medicare we would need that money to fund Medicare. Stealing from a program that is going bankrupt is a trick to avoid dealing with the cost of the program. The main plan is to have a board of 15 people determine what services seniors will be denied.

A second issue is that the CBO does static analysis, so they assume the tax increase have no negative effect on the economy so tax increase always collect less than estimated in the long run. Also some of the taxes are counted for more years than the benefits, which further hides the cost of the program. This is a trick used by Bush that Democrats rightly complained about.  But the most unpredictable factor is how many people will lose their employer coverage in next 10 years and when that will occur.

The 4 million people losing insurance represents less than 5%. Surveys show 30% of employers plan to drop coverage in first 5 years. That number jumps to 50% among employers who are very familiar with the law.  This makes it clear that the real cost will skyrocket from current estimates.

CBO is forced to do its analysis the way they do, so I do not blame them.  As they say garbage going in, results in garbage going out. No reasonable person should believe those claims to be accurate. The truth is without repeal we are doomed to follow the path of Europe to a debt crisis and that Obamacare must be repealed as part of any plan for fiscal responsibility.