Obamacare, Expensive? Say It Ain't So!

President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law will increase the nation’s health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation.

A report by economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department said the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls.

The smart people (those who were against the bill from the beginning) already knew this and spoke out about it.

Now it is verified.

Well duh.

The administration has egg on its face.

I’d like to rub that egg in their face a little harder myself.

“In another flashing yellow light, the report warned that a new voluntary long-term care insurance program created under the law faces “a very serious risk” of insolvency.”

This program is Kennedy’s legacy: it was something he insisted be included in the Senate bill. Congress, apparently dissatisfied that $107T in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and SS wasn’t enough, created yet another entitlement that is destined produce never-ending deficits in perpetuity. Senator Kennedy must be smiling from his grave.

Imagine the millions which will now not purchase Long Term Care Insurance because they will expect the government to to cover them, this is called creating a moral hazard. By 2030 there will be millions of drooling Boomers looking for a someone to care for them. Can you imagine the hell holes the government will waiting for them?

“this is called creating a moral hazard.”

Of course this new program was supposed to redress the moral hazard long ago created by Medicare and Medicaid. Most Americans, wittingly or unwittingly, are using Medicaid as their long-term care insurance policy. Many mistakenly believe Medicare covers long term care or don’t realize all the downsides of relying on Medicaid. Others keep putting off the decide to buy LTC until it gets unaffordably expensive. One quarter of those 85 and older are in nursing homes, so the risk is way higher than many realize. The consequence is that far fewer Americans buy LTC insurance than should. And few have retirement income ($80,000+ a year per person) that could comfortably absorb the cost of going into a nursing home.

But CLASS is just yet another example of the government ineptly stepping in to fix a problem largely of its own creation. Sort of like the “financial reform” that is allegedly needed but that mysteriously doesn’t do anything about Fannie or Freddie, the principal instigators of the melt-down.

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