President Obama’s White House Budget Director Peter Orszag explains that the newly created Medicare Commission, or Independent Payment Advisory Board, would possess “an enormous amount of potential power,” including “statutory power” to institute proposals that wouldn’t have to be sanctioned by Congress and couldn’t even be overturned by Congress without the President’s approval.
Obamacare is designed to push people into a system that won’t exist — a health-care bridge to nowhere — and, thus, merely living with it isn’t an option. The only options are repeal, or taking further steps toward an eventual government monopoly.
Congress originally tried to defend the constitutionality of ObamaCare’s individual mandate (which would require all Americans to buy health insurance) based on its power to regulate interstate commerce, but it has since gotten cold feet and has switched to a defense based on its power to tax. But not buying health care isn’t an aspect of commerce, and a penalty for not buying health care isn’t a tax — and for the Supreme Court to uphold the mandate on either basis would require the Court to allow Congress to go where it has never gone before.
A report by the Obama administration’s Medicare Chief Actuary forecasts that, among other things, ObamaCare would fail to achieve its number-one stated goal — reducing health care costs — and would instead raise costs, which helps explain why the legislation was rushed to a midnight vote (though its major programs wouldn’t begin until 2014) and why a clear majority of Americans oppose it.
The Senate bill, which became the enacted version of Obamacare (in connection with the “reconciliation package”), was never intended to be final law — and it reads like it.
ObamaCare’s increased regulations, restrictions, and oversight would more adversely affect doctors than those working in any other profession, and they would further undermine the doctor-patient relationship.
Get ready to have $2,800 taken out of your paycheck each year to pay for ObamaCare’s CLASS Act — a “public option” for long-term care insurance in which you’ll automatically be enrolled, and which will be financed with what even ObamaCare-supporting Senator Kent Conrad has called “a Ponzi scheme of the first order.”
ObamaCare is the embodiment of President Obama’s rejection of the American Founding principles of limited government, of American exceptionalism, and of the notion of self-evident truths.
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.
Despite promises that ObamaCare would be fully paid for and reduce the budget deficit, many of the savings will not materialize when the time comes. Firstly, it is extremely difficult from a technical perspective to correctly assess costs so far in the future. Secondly, many of the promised cuts are scheduled to take place far in the future in order to delay the political consequences of unpopular provisions, but future Congresses might not be willing to pay the political price for those cuts.