Today the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care mandate. While I respect the Court’s ruling, it doesn’t change what we know to be true: Obamacare is a bad law that is wrong for America. Today the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, not that it is a good or wise law. Obamacare is still a dangerous collaboration of bad legislating, smoke and mirrors calculations and dangerous policy. Under President Obama’s signature legislation, health care costs continue to skyrocket, and up to 20 million Americans could lose their employer-based coverage. Born from intensely partisan, back door deals and closed room meetings, Obamacare is a boondoggle of historic proportions. While no one can argue that our healthcare system doesn’t need reform, the partisan and closed door way in which this bad law was forced on the American people made it wrong from the beginning. Even though ruled constitutional, Obamacare is a law that will add trillions to our debt, increase healthcare 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 healthcare.

Take a look at this breakdown of Obamacare and the impact it will have on our families and businesses:

Health Care Costs and Impact on Americans

• $1,200:  Increase in health care premiums for an average American family in the year following enactment of the Democrats’ health care law.
• 13 percent:  Premium increase, in 2016, for individuals and families who buy coverage on their own – compared to if the law hadn’t been enacted at all.
• $118 billion:  Additional financial burden saddled onto state budgets from ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion.
• 200 percent:  National debt as a percentage of GDP in 2037 despite promise of cost-control from ObamaCare advocates.
• $70 billion:  Size of ObamaCare budget gimmick resulting from the failed CLASS program.
• 1,019,810:  Number of Americans that are at risk of losing their plan, because the plan was denied a waiver from ObamaCare.

Impact on Employers

• $422.4 billion:  Amount that 71 Fortune 100 companies could save by eliminating employer-sponsored health plans and instead paying the $2,000 employer mandate penalty from 2014-2023.
• $28.6 billion:  Amount that 71 Fortune 100 companies could save by eliminating employer-sponsored health plans and instead paying the $2,000 employer mandate penalty in 2014 alone.
• 4 million to 20 million to 65 million:  Number of people in the employer system estimated to lose insurance as a result of ObamaCare, based on two separate analyses provided by CBOand Deloitte.
• 800,000:  The amount of workers the labor force would be reduced by in 2021, as a result of ObamaCare.

Taxes

• 22:  Number of new tax increases in the Democrats’ health care law as originally enacted – a dozen of which violate the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans.
• $569.2 billion:  Gross tax increase over 10 years resulting from the Democrats’ health law, as estimated at the time of enactment.
• $1 million:  Amount of money IRS spent to send out 4 million postcards to small business owners touting their “eligibility” for the Small Business Tax Credit even though IRS knew that many of them would not qualify because of the strict eligibility criteria.
  • 170,000:  Number of small businesses that claimed the credit in 2010, or less than five percent.
  • 1,278: Number of employees that the IRS reported to TIGTA that it needs in FY12 alone to implement the Democrats’ health care law.

Seniors

• 9 in 10:  Number of seniors with retiree benefits who will lose their retiree prescription drug coverage through their employer under the Democrats’ health care law.
• Approximately 8 in 10:  Estimated number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Part D that are paying a higher premium so that 15 percent of beneficiaries can benefit from the change to the donut hole.

Special Interest Spending

• $3.8 billion: Amount of money available to the Obama Administration to hand out in cut-rate loans, primarily to political allies, to form insurance cooperatives, many of whom do not appear eligible under the law.
• $0:  Amount of money left in the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP), which was supposed to be in place through 2014, but has already stopped paying new claims after spending $5 billion.
  •  About half of the entities receiving the subsidies are politically favored friends – unions and state and local governments.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Blog Posts.