By Buck McKeon
I respect the U.S, Supreme Court’s ruling, and while I find it disappointing, it doesn’t change what we know to be true: Obamacare is a bad law that is wrong for America.
The Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, not that it is a good or wise law.
While no one can argue that our health care system isn’t in need of serious reform, the intensely partisan and murky way in which this bad law was forced on the American people made it wrong for the country from the beginning.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged unprecedented transparency to the American people on the stump back in 2008.
Yet the day he took office, the president got to work on one of the most opaque and closed-door, big-government takeovers we have seen. Born from partisan back-door deals and closed-room meetings, Obamacare is a boondoggle of historic proportions.
Weighing in at over 2,700 pages, the Affordable Care Act, although deemed constitutional by the court, is still a dangerous collaboration of bad legislating, smoke-and-mirrors calculations and dangerous policy.
Highlighting the secret way this legislation was rammed through Congress was then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she infamously remarked: “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
While Pelosi’s words encapsulate with remarkable candor the partisan power grab that is the Affordable Care Act, Vice President Joe Biden explained it best when he lewdly whispered to the president, “This is a big @#$%^&* deal.”
That is putting it lightly Mr. Vice President.
Under the act, families will see an average of a $1,200 yearly increase in health care premiums. By 2016, there will be an expected 13-percent premium increase for individuals and families who buy coverage on their own. Already struggling state budgets will be saddled with an additional $118 billion burden from the expansion of Medicaid.
Nine-in-10 seniors with retiree benefits will be at risk of losing their retiree prescription-drug coverage through their employers.
Between 2014 and 2023, 71 of the Fortune 100 companies could save $422.4 billion by eliminating employer-sponsored health plans and instead paying the $2,000 employer mandate tax.
Tens of millions of people in the employer-sponsored system are set to lose insurance as a result of the implementation of Obamacare, and it is estimated that 800,000 workers in the labor force could lose their jobs.
Not to mention the 22 new tax increases included in the act, a dozen of which violate the president’s pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans.
Built on smoke and mirrors budget gimmicks, the president originally declared that the act would actually reduce the deficit by $143 billion over 10 years — a calculation we now know was based upon offsets from a variety of drastic tax hikes and $500 billion in cuts to Medicare benefits.
We have now come to learn that the Congressional Budget Office has calculated that the actual cost of the act will be $1.76 trillion over 10 years.
And these are just a few highlights of the dangers to be found in the bill.
From the moment Obamacare was introduced, the American people have expressed concerns about the impacts it would have on the cost and quality of care, our economy and the national debt. Even though ruled constitutional, Obamacare is a law that will add trillions to our debt, increase health care costs, hike taxes and kill jobs.
I will continue to fight to repeal the entire law and replace it with commonsense solutions that address the critical issue of American health care. I will remain focused on working for a better way forward to provide patient-centered, affordable and accessible health care. I will work to find common-sense, step-by-step reforms that protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a lower cost.
I want families to be able to make their own choices in health care, visit the doctor of their choosing, and receive the health care they and their doctor feel is best.
I want to protect patients with pre-existing conditions and young adults. Most importantly, we need solutions that make health care more affordable for all Americans, but Obamacare is the wrong way.
