WASHINGTON, DC – In a mere two months, states will be required to submit an application detailing whether they plan to establish the insurance exchanges mandated in the president’s health care law; for those states that choose not to take on this regulatory burden, the alternative will be a federally run system.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that states are not required to participate in Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office today released an updated report revealing that despite covering fewer individuals, the health care law actually increases federal spending, taxes, and premiums even more than previously estimated.
The independent Health and Human Services Inspector General is sounding the alarm about potential misuse of taxpayer dollars, highlighting the same concerns Energy and Commerce Committee members have raised that federal dollars funneled through a key Obamacare “slush fund” may have been ina
In 2009, President Obama insisted the individual mandate was not a tax. As ABC News pointed out, the only reason the law stands today is because “Congress has the authority to tax-something Obama maintained it wasn’t trying to do.”
Obamacare proponents frequently claim that the law will cover approximately 30 million people when fully implemented. However, how they plan to achieve this goal is rarely discussed. In addition to exchange subsidies, approximately 20 million individuals will be swept into a massive Medicaid expansion in 2014.
Health Care Costs and Impact on Americans