Obamacare Increases Unemployment, Insurance Premiums, Deficit, and Debt

[Warph]

"Obamacare Increases Unemployment, Insurance Premiums, Deficit, and Debt"
The Heritage Foundation
Posted March 17th, 2010 at 10:27am

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders claim that the Senate health bill, which will likely face a vote in the House by the end of the week, will decrease the deficit and bend the cost curve related to health care spending.  However, recent analysis by The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis (CDA) shows that this is far from true.  Instead, the bill's mandates and numerous new taxes will have tumultuous effects.  Passing Obamacare will come at the expense of the American people as it would grow the federal debt, increase premiums, and stifle economic growth.

The Senate bill would have disastrous effects on the economy and federal spending.  CDA shows that the bill:

Increases the federal deficit and national debt. The Congressional Budget Office shows deficit neutrality for the Senate bill—however, this is based on static analysis which ignores the effects new taxes and an individual and employer mandate would have on economic growth.  These provisions would decrease investment in the economy, resulting in lower wages and salaries.  This means less taxable income, lowering federal revenues and growing the debt. Increased borrowing puts upward pressure on interest rates causing some private sector productive investment opportunities to be foregone.  This also increases the interest owed on the national debt, such that the government would pay, on average, $20 billion more in interest between 2010 and 2020.  By the end of the decade, CDA estimates the publicly held debt would be $755 billion dollars more than under current law.

Rest of story at:  http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/17/obamacare-increases-unemployment-insurance-premiums-deficit-and-debt/


Now I ask you.... what are the top three priorities of any Democratic or Republican White House if they are faced with skyrocketing unemployment and billions of dollars spent on extended unemployment benefits?  The answer of course is creating the right economic conditions to grow jobs, jobs, and more jobs.  But the Democratic leadership and our Clown Community Organizer believes in a very different course of action.  Their solution is to spend most of their time on attempting to pass a $1 trillion healthcare bill and claim that it will create more jobs.  The "Wicked Witch of the West" Pelosi says a report by the Center for American Progress estimates that the Democrats' healthcare bill would create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs per year over 10 years.  Pure BS.  A new study released by Americans for Tax Reform (http://www.atr.org/index.php)  reports the exact opposite will happen.  Using the center's own methodology, it finds that the healthcare bill proposed by Democrats would destroy a total of 120,000 to 700,000 jobs by 2019.  And the Heritage Foundation recently released its own analysis that the healthcare bill will lead to an estimated 690,000 lost job opportunities per year.  The national unemployment rate is fluctuating from double digit figures to the current rate of 9.7 percent.  Millions of Americans haven't had a job in more than a year and still receive unemployment benefits from the federal government.  And now our nation's debt is threatening our worldwide credit rating due to the trillions of dollars in runaway spending.   Translation: The healthcare proposal will be a mammoth job killing terminator with a federal license to destroy American small business.  Every day that the White House spends on other issues besides working to create the right conditions for positive job growth is another day that millions of unemployed American voters grow angrier.  A better idea would be for the majority of Congress to just call in sick to work since they aren't doing the job voters want them to perform.  Hmmmm...... faking a head cold might be a better approach because if they pass this healthcare bill, many Democrats who vote for it will probably be looking for work after November.  Maybe the economic soothsayers were right when they said 25% of Americans will be out of work by 2016 because of the Democrats! ...Warph