Broken Promises of ObamaCare

3.23.13
Tim Phillips

(Townhall) Mar. 22, 2013 - Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of President Obama’s most significant legislative 'accomplishment': ObamaCare -- the largest expansion of the welfare state in five decades. Tellingly, the President made sure it did not go into effect until after his re-election campaign concluded. Thus, Americans will not feel the full impact of this disastrous legislation until this coming January.

Despite a long, lavishly funded campaign to sell the supposed benefits of the 2,400 page behemoth, polls show ObamaCare is still as deeply unpopular now with the American people than when it passed in the spring of 2010. A recent Kaiser Family Poll shows that opposition to the law remains above 40%.

On this inauspicious anniversary of ObamaCare we should pause and remember the promises made by the President during his campaign to pass this legislation. Time and again President Obama told Americans that, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Yet the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the number of workers who get health care plans from their employers will drop by millions. The plans that most Americans say they’re satisfied with and would like to keep will cease to exist as insurers are forced to comply with new regulations. Already, employer-provided plans are disappearing as small businesses trim payrolls to stay below the 50 person threshold after which the law mandates comprehensive coverage be provided for all workers. The devastating unintended consequence of ObamaCare is more companies dropping health care benefits altogether.

President Obama guaranteed that ObamaCare would “lower premiums by $2,500 per family per year,” but the reverse occurring. In fact, health care premiums on average are going up for most Americans. The National Health Expenditure Projection estimates premiums climbed by 8% in 2012 alone, increases fueled largely by providers attempting to comply with ObamaCare’s endless array of mandates.

President Obama promised the law would not “raise the deficit by a dime” thanks to $500 billion in new taxes and a bit of budget magic. When passed, the law raised taxes starting in 2013 but didn’t start the spending until 2014 underestimating the full budgetary impact. However, according to CBO estimates, the law is projected to cost at best $1.4 trillion as it is fully implemented over the next ten years. Even using the Senate Democrat budget numbers it becomes clear ObamaCare will be a major driver of national debt. In fact, the Government Accountability Office announced in February that ObamaCare will add $6.2 trillion to the long-term federal deficit. And, when in the course of American history has a Washington, D.C. entitlement program ever come in on budget?

Further, the Department of Health and Human Services, which has the unenviable task of implementing this behemoth, was forced to abandon the CLASS Act, which supposed to provide a significant amount of the promised deficit reduction. The intent of the CLASS Act was to allow working adults to buy insurance against potential future nursing home bills, and by collecting five years of premiums before paying anything out, the program allowed the administration to claim $80 billion in savings. But the likelihood that the program would collapse as mostly older people opted-in forced HHS to abandon the idea—and the supposed savings along with it

Remember the President’s promise that ObamaCare would protect Medicare? Not true. ObamaCare actually takes money from Medicare and Medicare Advantage to fund many of its new programs. According to the CMS Actuary to the Medicare Board of Trustees, ObamaCare didn’t even attempt to resolve $37 trillion in unfunded obligations and instead took nearly $716 billion out of the program. Instead of protecting Medicare and reforming the system, ObamaCare forces the program closer to insolvency, which hurts seniors and Americans who are planning to retire—that is, every single American who may need to rely on the program for their medical needs.

These are just a few of the most egregious broken promises of ObamaCare; there are many more. So tomorrow as you hear the jubilant left-wing media personalities talk about the benefits of ObamaCare, just remember that this “legislative accomplishment” is little more than a bureaucratic boondoggle that raises health care costs, hurts seniors and raises taxes on everyone while eliminating jobs. Happy 3rd Anniversary indeed!