It’s the Economy, Stupid.
James Carville’s words are as true now as they were in 1992. Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported unemployment was higher in 27 states in February. The national unemployment rate is now at 9.7, up from 8.2 percent a year earlier. Since last year alone, the economy has shed another 3.2 million jobs-all while the President and Democrats on Capitol Hill focused on the virtues of legislation that increases premiums and raises taxes. There’s not an economist in the whole world who believes a government should raise taxes during a deep recession.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the White House is doing. This new “cost-reducing” law:
- Increases Deficits. At $12 trillion, the U.S. debt is the largest it’s ever been-and growing at an astonishing pace. At $940 billion, government-run health care will not only increase the debt, but the rate at which the debt grows.
- Reduces Quality. It waters-down the Medicare coverage of 33 million Americans and renders 20% of U.S. hospitals unprofitable because of Medicaid spending cuts. Worse, it encourages employers to cease employer-provided insurance and instead push millions of Americans into poorly administered Medicaid-like plans.
- Increases Cost. It raises taxes by $569.2 billion, steals roughly $500 billion from Medicare and robs another $52 billion from Social Security. It increases premiums for individual insurance by 54% and family premiums by $2,100.
- Limits Access. It will push an estimated 19 million Americans off their employer-based plan and 11.5 million off Medicare Advantage. It provides 32 million Americans access to doctors, but fails to appropriate any funds for new doctors and hospitals and, even worse, systematically underpays medical providers.
Jeanette Nordstrom
National Center for Policy Analysis
www.ncpa.org
