Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan group that assesses the budgetary impact of congressional legislation, released two new reports on Obamacare. Not surprisingly, these reports found that the true costs of Obamacare are now estimated to be nearly twice as high as the initial figure that Democrats claimed in 2009; and if that's not bad enough, the CBO also found that even more Americans will be forced from their current employer based coverage.
The CBO’s new projection estimates that Obamacare will cost the American taxpayer more than $1.7 trillion over the next ten years. This downright astonishing figure is nearly twice the already unacceptable amount that Democrats originally claimed the bill would cost. As House Republicans repeatedly pointed out during the health care law debate, most of the costs of the bill do not take place until the end of the ten-year budget window. In other words, the cost of Obamacare is relatively small until it is fully implemented in 2014, when the cost skyrockets. If this bill is not repealed, the cost will simply continue to increase far and above even these new, trillion-dollar estimates.
In addition to the increased cost estimate, CBO estimated that Obamacare also forces millions of taxpayers off of their current employer-provided plans. When the President was trying to sell the American people this ill-conceived bill, he promised the American people that if they liked their current health care coverage, they would be able to keep it. Yet, according to CBO's new analysis, up to 20 million Americans could be forced off their current plans due to penalties and costs associated with the law. Many of these Americans would then be forced onto government exchange programs, further raising the cost of Obamacare. Others would simply go without any coverage at all, yet still be subject to potential fines and penalties.
When Republicans regained the majority in the House of Representatives, we promised to repeal the government takeover of health care and instead promote individual liberties and enhance, not restrict, opportunities for the American people to make the health care decision that is right for them. We have passed bills to repeal the entirety of Obamacare, as well as numerous bills targeted at specific portions of the law. We will continue to work to repeal this terrible piece of legislation, but it will take a cooperative Senate and a new President. For the current year, multiple courts, including the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Florida in Pensacola, have ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Later this month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments that challenge the law’s constitutionality.
The recent CBO report only highlights the necessity of getting rid of Obamacare. Obamacare hurts, not helps, our health care system, while leaving a massive burden on the shoulders of the American people. If left in place, the costs of this bill will only continue to grow. Meanwhile, federal bureaucrats will become involved in basic health care choices that should be between individuals and their doctors. House Republicans will not stand idly by while a multi-trillion dollar government intrusion threatens to destroy America’s health care system, to throw millions of Americans off of their current coverage plans and then to leave their children and grandchildren to foot the bill.
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