Posted on 04/19/2014 10:38:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Earlier this month there was tremendous press attention to new data indicating that enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s health insurance exchanges had surpassed 7 million. The White House took a victory lap while much of the press, desperate to write something positive after months of reporting on website glitches and insurance plan cancellations, characterized the milestone as good political news for ACA supporters. Our national discussion, however, is missing the truly significant story here; what is unfolding before our eyes is a colossal fiscal disaster, poised to haunt legislators and taxpayers for decades to come.
It is quite possible that the ACA is shaping up as the greatest act of fiscal irresponsibility ever committed by federal legislators. Nothing immediately comes to mind as comparable to it. Certainly no tax legislation is, because tax rates rise and fall frequently, such that one Congress’s tax cut can be (and often is) undone by a later tax increase. The same is true for legislation affecting appropriated spending programs. But the ACA is a commitment to permanently subsidize comprehensive health insurance for millions who could not otherwise afford it, which the federal government has no viable plan to finance. Moreover, experience shows that it is very difficult to scale back such spending once large numbers of Americans have been made dependent on it.
Let’s walk through the salient features of this unfolding fiscal disaster:
An Expansion of Spending Commitments Comparable to Enacting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid: Our biggest fiscal problems today stem from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs rising well beyond original projections. The ACA was enacted even though these longstanding financing challenges have still not been met, and represents an additional expansion of federal commitments comparable to these other programs’ creations.....
(Excerpt) Read more at mercatus.org ...
The dem’s will no doubt prescribe single payer as ACA continues to kill, steal, and destroy...the bad news for liberals is that this disaster is educating a lot of the squishy middle on the dangers of full government control. Add to that monster deficits heaped on top of the already sinking medicare/medicaid programs and the erosion of trust caused by blatant lies about ACA, I think single payer is a much harder sell...you will only see dem’s from deep blue states supporting it.
I have a moonbat customer who was taking a obama victory lap at my expense when they announced the 7 million mark....I asked him since a large portion of the sign ups aren’t paying for it...how is going to be funded...?
His answer was the government.....he was a little dumbstruck when I reminded him....as a taxpayer he was actually paying for it...since the government has no revenue except taxes paid by you...
His answer was the government.....he was a little dumbstruck when I reminded him....as a taxpayer he was actually paying for it...since the government has no revenue except taxes paid by you...”
I had one of those true believers, also. Bragged about the “success” of Obamacare due to the sign ups. Yet, when pressed, couldn't name any successes except to repeat 7 million, 7 million.
This is their “Mission Accomplished” banner
Obama is the most successful snake oil salesman of all time. The very premise that you can install a massive federal bureaucracy and health care can be delivered and it will save money,etc. “won’t cost us one thin dime”, has always been ludicrous.
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