Polling in eleven key swing states shows that voters, especially independents, are still in strong opposition to ObamaCare. “We found that public opinion about health reform is roughly stable, and opposition to reform appears to be an important determinant of voting intention in the midterm elections-particularly for political independents.” Results also show that opinions on the health care law are especially salient for independents in determining how they plan to vote in November.
A small-business owner writes that, with 16 full-time employees averaging $40,000 in annual wages, his share of the small-business tax-credit promised under ObamaCare would be … $0. But his business would become eligible for the tax-credit if he starts cutting his employees’ wages or laying them off.
With baby boomer physicians nearing retirement, the United States is likely to face a six-figure shortage of doctors even without the significant increase in demand for health care that ObamaCare would create. But should the health-care overhaul remain in place — spawning greater government control and making a career in medicine less attractive — access to high-quality health care in America would be further reduced.
“The Obama administration’s inept handling of the oil leak foreshadows what will happen when hapless government bureaucrats begin administering our healthcare.”
With statistics showing that an insured person is actually more likely to visit an emergency room than an uninsured person, and with a shortage of primary-care doctors available to service the newly insured, the health care overhaul’s implementation would lead to tens of millions more emergency room visits each year — opposite the result that ObamaCare’s backers have said it would have.
Looking at the problems ObamaCare is likely to cause for the federal budget and American businesses and families, repealing it is far from impossible. Other unpopular or ill-conceived health care measures have been repealed in the recent past before their enactment. “President Barack Obama’s signatures on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act do not end the national debate on federal control of health care. The debate merely enters a new and perhaps even more difficult and divisive phase. Based on current revelations and previous experience, this continuing debate gives Congress ample justification to repeal Obamacare. At the very least, Congress can dismantle or defund its damaging provisions.”
Seniors on Medicare are justifiably worried about future cuts to Medicare. ObamaCare has over $500 billion in cuts to the program over 10 years, mostly in cuts to the Medicare Advantage program, as well as across-the-board cuts to various health care providers. “[T]he law calls for squeezing Medicare to come up with more than half the $938 billion estimated cost of the new national health plan.”
The federal government responded to the lawsuit brought jointly by 20 state attorneys general who argue that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. In addition to claiming that the states lack the standing to sue and that ObamaCare is a valid regulation of interstate commerce, the Department of Justice argued that the individual mandate is part of Congress’s broad power to tax. This directly contradicts frequent claims, but Congressional Democrat leadership as well as President Obama, that suggestions that the individual mandate was a tax were misleading and disingenuous fear-mongering.
New surveys of doctors are showing the number of physicians who are refusing to accept new Medicare patients is at an all time high. Low reimbursement rates for the government-run insurance program are prompting doctors to focus on more profitable patients with other payment methods. ObamaCare’s $500 billion in across-the-board Medicare cuts will cause the problem to worsen significantly.
When selling Obama Care, the president “absolutely reject[ed]” the claim that the individual mandate is a tax, largely because the individual mandate heavily affects the middle class, and the president promised in the campaign not to raise any taxes on them. Now that the bill has passed, the Obama Administration is arguing that the individual mandate is Constitutional because Congress is empowered to levy taxes by the Constitution, contradicting his earlier position.