“I am convinced that ObamaCare was designed to lead to a government takeover of our entire health-care system, which is one-sixth of our economy. As I traveled around Wisconsin in the last year, I asked thousands of people a simple question: ‘Do you think the federal government has the capability of running one-sixth of our economy?’ Only two people ever raised their hands.”
“Today marks the official one-year anniversary of enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Of course, the political honeymoon for the new health law’s original marriage of expanded coverage, income redistribution, interest-group deals, budgetary smoke, and unpredictable regulatory mirrors ended well before its final signing ceremony. Today, a clear plurality of the broader American public remains ready to return more than just a few of the defective or unwanted gifts it was offered. It does not seek further counseling. It wants a divorce from ObamaCare.”
“Perhaps more important than overall impressions are public perceptions about whether people will eventually be better off under the legislation. Unfortunately for the bill’s supporters, the polling evidence doesn’t suggest strong confidence. Twenty-six percent in the March 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation poll say they and their families will be better off, while 30 percent say they will be worse off. A strong plurality in March 2011 says the cost for them and their families will get worse. Twenty-three percent say it will get better. As for one of the bill’s selling points, the ability to get insurance, 26 percent in the latest Kaiser poll say it will get better, 25 percent worse, and 46 percent stay about the same.”
“ObamaCare’s middle class insurance subsidies are one of the law’s most popular features for obvious reasons. But the existence of the subsidies sets up a serious potential problem: What happens politically when it’s discovered that between two families making roughly the same amount of money, only one has access to a subsidy?”
“Today marks the one-year anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we are doing the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveals the far-reaching negative consequences.”
“Advocates of ObamaCare were utterly disconnected from Americans’ concerns about the bill—most especially their concern that it violated the Constitution. Nancy Pelosi was surprised when a reporter asked what part of the Constitution justified a mandate on American citizens to purchase a consumer good or service: was this man serious? Her press spokesman later clarified, lest there be any confusion, that constitutional questions were not serious questions.”
“Historically, the more governments have become involved in health care decisions, two things happen. First, health care costs rise, and, second, access to health care services declines. I believe ObamaCare is clearly causing health care costs to rise and ultimately will reduce access to health care services.”
“But the larger issue remains a stubborn philosophical divide over the proper role of government in working out the cost and access problems that have left 50 million people uninsured and countless more with an increasingly tenuous grip on whatever coverage they do have. Opponents remain critical of the overhaul they fought to prevent, and experts say the 2012 presidential election may present the biggest threat to its continued implementation.”
“After a year of learning what is in the law — and seeing its effect on families, small businesses and our economy — it is now clear that Obamacare is a failed experiment. Sadly, this failure was predictable and very expensive.”
“What’s $2.3 trillion among friends? That’s the canyon between the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of a $9.5 trillion federal budget deficit over the next decade under White House proposals, and the White House’s own estimate of $7.2 trillion. The discrepancy emerged in a CBO analysis released Friday, not that it got much media attention.”