The Obamacare Debacle. It's Certain Failure is all too Predictable.

National Review ^ | 11/15/2012 | Michael Tanner

[SeekAndFind]

If one wanted to sum up the consequences of the entire 2012 election in a single issue, look no farther than Obamacare.

The new health-care law is generally regarded as the signature achievement of the president’s first term. It’s certainly emblematic of Obama’s entire approach to government and what we can expect from his second-term initiatives.

The president promised a great deal of benefits from health-care reform: lower premiums, better care, universal coverage. He reassured Americans: If you had health insurance, and you liked it, you could keep it. The bill’s gross ten-year cost would be less than $1 trillion, and the legislation would actually reduce the deficit in the long run. The rich and some big businesses might have to pay a bit more in taxes, but the middle class would be better off.

But as with so many other policies of this administration, the results never matched the rhetoric. The pretty promises turned out to be “just words.”

Rather than work across the aisle, President Obama pushed his bill through on a purely partisan basis, using dubious parliamentary maneuvers and refusing to consider Republican alternatives. Nor was the president deterred by public opinion. Polls consistently showed that Americans opposed the president’s plan — they still do — but the president insisted on doing it his way.

The president who always prefers government to markets unsurprisingly produced a costly new entitlement program, financed by both new taxes and massive debt, that relies on top-down planning. The $1 trillion price tag has been left far behind. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will now cost at least $1.8 trillion through 2022, and other estimates suggest it could cost as much as $2.2 trillion over that period if all costs are taken into account, adding more than $823 billion to the deficit over ten years.

Even the government’s own actuaries expect it to drive up insurance premiums. The most recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that in the future premiums will rise at 7.9 percent annually, double the rate they would have risen if Obamacare had not been passed.

Many of Obamacare’s taxes fall not just on the rich, but on the middle class and small businesses. In fact, the mandate “tax” in particular will hit 11 million middle-class taxpayers to the tune of $6 billion. Moreover, the law’s costly new mandates and regulations are widely seen as a small-business job killer.

And, while Obamacare doesn’t directly ration care, it puts in place structures that will almost inevitably lead to rationing. Notably, beginning in 2017, a board of 15 unelected bureaucrats, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), will have the authority to impose drastic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare. If abused, this authority could allow the government to refuse to pay for some treatments or providers, effectively rationing care. Even under the best of scenarios, the already-planned cuts will force as many as 15 percent of hospitals to close and cause many doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients. Given Medicare’s enormous unfunded liabilities, some reduction in benefits is inevitable, but it is typical of the Obama administration to prefer that bureaucrats rather than individual consumers decide how that reduction takes place.

In addition, millions of Americans are discovering that they will not be able to keep their current health-care plans. This includes seniors who will lose their Medicare Advantage plans, and businesses and individuals who find their plans non-compliant with Obamacare’s required benefits (such as Catholic charities and schools that are now required to offer birth control, including abortifacients). Surveys suggest that 10 to 30 percent of employers could drop their coverage, dumping their workers into plans offered on the government-run exchanges.

Yet, for all this, Obamacare falls far short of its goal of universal coverage. Nearly 20 million Americans will still be uninsured after the bill is fully implemented. Millions more will simply be dumped into Medicaid.

A President Romney could have used waivers, executive orders, and his power over budgets to delay or cut back on parts of the law.

Thus, on health care, as on so many other issues, last Tuesday’s election left us with a president whose belief in big government and centralized control has been and will only continue to be a disaster. The 2012 election has delivered us a devil we know all too well.

— Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.

[kabar]

Actually, Wolf who is my Congressman, is right. He was one of the leaders in Congress years ago who tried to get a bipartisan committee together to address the looming fiscal crisis. He knows what he is talking about. Politfact is a Left leaning operation.

The $60 trillion unfunded liability is correct today. The lower number is predicated on Obamacare's impact, which we have yet to see since it has not been implemented fully yet. I give more credence to the Trustee's report.

Also they are not liabilities as they can be changed by congress at anytime. But that one’s more of a semantic disagreement.

Yes, they can be changed at any time to reduce benefits and increase taxes as was done in 1983 when SS went in the red. SS has been in the red now since 2010. It will stay permanently in the red until it is reformed.

Source: CBO "Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline" 26 Jan 2011. Note: See "Primary Surplus" line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)

Matters are even worse than this chart shows. In December, Congress passed a Social Security tax reduction. Workers are temporarily paying 2 percentage points less, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, in Social Security payroll taxes this calendar year. Since the government is making up the shortfall out of general revenues, CBO’s deficit projections for the trust funds do not include that. But CBO’s figures predict that the "payroll tax holiday" will cost the government’s general fund $85 billion in this fiscal year and $29 billion in fiscal year 2012 (which starts Oct.1, 2011.) Since every dollar of that will have to be borrowed, the combined effect of the " tax holiday" and the annual deficits will amount to a $130 billion addition to the federal deficit in the current fiscal year, and $59 billion in fiscal 2012.

Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.

Of course something needs to be done to reign (sic) in healthcare costs. Obamacare is what we have to deal with right now. I still don’t understand why Republicans hate it since it’s basically a Heritage Foundation plan. I would have been much happier with a true single-payer system and the ability to control prescription drug prices.

Ah, now I understand where you are coming from. You are a socialist who believes in nationalized healthcare. I have seen it firsthand in Europe. It doesn't work. And it will devour the federal budget and ruin the quality of healthcare. There will be less access and more bureaucracy.

As PJ O'Rourke has said, "If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it is free."

Have a good day.

[freeangel]

I can just see the executive order to conscript the medical personnel fleeing from his mandates. Then forcing them to do abortions and after birth murders while the supremes deem this necessary for the well being of citizens. He is nothing but evil and a harbinger of thing to come.

[ksen]

SS has been in the red now since 2010.

What? Not according to the SSA it hasn't.

[upcountryhorseman]

People don’t understand: big “O” wants the Country to fall
so that He can impose socialism.

[what's up]

Read later.

[what's up]

Read later.

[SC_Pete]

LOL Stalin would be proud. /s

[justa-hairyape]

It never was about health care. The USS Titanic, after surviving some suicide bomber attacks in 2001, hit an iceberg in 2008. The Health Care bill is designed to increase revenues to the US Treasury. That is all they want from it. They are trying to keep the USS Titanic afloat.

[MichaelCorleone]

“This is what happens when you nominate a candidate that effectively took health care off the table as a campaign issue.”

Exactly. Which is why I wonder if the GOPe is that inept or that they just want to consistently lose. I really don’t know.

And now they’re seriously considering embracing the illegals and ignore the conservative. Any wonder people are talking secession and/or third party?

[GeronL]

It is supposed to fail so the government can nationalize health care (sinlge payer) while declaring it some sort of emergency

[kabar]

SS is a pay as you go system. Currently, it is paying out more in benefits than it is taking in in revenue. The shortfall is being made up by redeeming the non-market, interest bearing T-bills in the SS Trust Fund, which contains $2.6 trillion in what amounts to IOUs. The SSTF is included in the $16 trillion national debt and held under "Intra-governmental Holdings." In reality, the SSTF just represents the good faith and credit of the USG to honor the T-bills. Once the T-bills run out, the SSA can only pay out in benefits what it receives in revenue, which will reduce benefits across the board.

When SS was running a "surplus," more revenue than the amount of benefits paid, the "surplus" was deposited into the General Fund for use elsewhere and Treasury issued non-market T-bills in the amount of the "surplus" and deposited them into the SSTF.

[ksen]

I dug deeper and you are right about SS revenues not keeping up with SS expenditures.

[The Duke]

Doesn't that sound like the Canadian system? Isn't that what liberals want, a universal, national health care system? Do you think our lawmakers and union members would support O-care if they knew it was about to be shoved down their throats as well?

Knowing the composition of their character, I tend to doubt it.

[The Duke]

Doesn't that sound like the Canadian system? Isn't that what liberals want, a universal, national health care system?

Do you think our lawmakers and union members would support O-care if they knew it was about to be shoved down their throats as well?

Knowing the composition of their character, I tend to doubt it.

[Tunehead54]

To answer your question, I don’t recall the storyline but the title seems appropriate and perhaps prophetic: “Goodbye Mr. Chips” Sorry. ;-)

[rcrngroup]

Obamacare will be the albatross around Obama and the Dems' neck. Maybe we will get a Rep who can really detail the disaster that Obamacare is and will be. Romney was hamstrung in that regard.

It will NEVER be an albatross around any demoRAT's neck or especially 0dumb0's neck. In the recent election in MN, every demoRAT House rep & senate turd Amy Klobuchar won by 2/3 of the vote. It made no difference re. the economy, $6 trillion more deficit spending, 8% (really 15%) unemployment, their votes for 0bamaCare & every other demoRAT socialist program. The media glossed over all these and in fact mocked any Repub who criticized the dems for voting for these fiascos. Even if the country goes totally bankupt & we end up with a worthless monetary system, the dems & their media whores will STILL claim it is the fault of the Repubs, because we did not give them everything they wanted immediately so as to "stave off" the devastation.

The only thing that is going to save our nation is for a great massive bloody civil war, and to take our nation back by force if necessary. The demographics & +50% who voted for socialism will never give up or back down on their own.

[Tunehead54]

I rade smowhere tath enve baldy mispeleld setances are esialy undesrtod by intllignte poeple/ Yoru thotghts? Need an aspirin? ;-)

[MrChips]

Alas, poor Mr. Chips.

[Ouderkirk]

When it collapses they execute the prisoners...

[kabar]

It will NEVER be an albatross around any demoRAT's neck or especially 0dumb0's neck.

We will just agree to disagree. We will find out in the next two years as the pain of Obamacare kicks in. There will be no hiding it or blaming anyone else. As Boehner said, it is the law of the land.