Report: Failing grade for Obamacare

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=170041




By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks to military personnel at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, June 15, 2010. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY)

A new report from the office of House GOP Leader Rep. John Boehner gives "Obamacare" a failing grade for its first three months due to evidence of billions in new taxes, job losses it will trigger, its increase of the deficit and a list of other impacts Americans now are discovering.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier said voters would be able to find out what was in bill after lawmakers adopted it and President Obama made it law.

Now it's being revealed that nearly another half a billion dollars in taxes for Obama's plan will come from charity-based 501(c)3 hospitals and a whopping $70 billion will come from those who don't buy "government-approved" health insurance or in some other way fail to comply with the law's demands.

Most polls over the past few months have shown that Americans – by a significant margin – oppose Obamacare and want it repealed. A recent poll by the Obama-friendly CNN revealed 56 percent of the public disapproves of the law.

"While rushing their massive government takeover of health care through Congress, President Obama and congressional Democrats promised it would create jobs, lower costs, reduce the deficit, allow Americans to keep their health care, protect seniors' coverage, prohibit taxpayer-funded abortion, and, of course, gain the support of the American people," Boehner's report said.

"It isn't just that none of these promises or predictions have turned out to be true. In every instance, Obamacare has made matters worse," the report said.

Among the study's conclusions:

    * "Some of the nation's largest employers have announced they will be forced to make cutbacks as a result of Obamacare's job-killing mandates."

    * "Two independent government entities … have confirmed that the new law fails to lower health care costs and reduce the deficit."

    * "Obamacare includes at least a dozen violations of President Obama's pledge to not raise taxes on middle-class families."

    * "The government has confirmed that the new law's massive Medicare cuts will fall squarely on the backs of seniors, millions of whom will be forced off their current Medicare coverage."

The report also said Obama officials have confirmed their new law "will force some 87 million Americans to drop their current coverage despite President Obama's promise that Americans would be able to keep the coverage that they have."

The report further states Obama has done nothing to implement his executive order that was supposed to prevent taxpayer funding of abortions.

The result is that people like it no better now – or even less – than before they knew many of the details. Dozens of states also have revolted against the plan.

"This report chronicles Obamacare's broken promises in the three months since it became law," Boehner said. "The American people remain squarely opposed to this government takeover of health care that has already failed to live up to specific promises made by President Obama and Washington Democrats.

"Republicans are listening to the American people, and fighting to repeal Obamacare so we can replace it with common-sense reforms focused on lowering costs and protecting jobs," he said.

According to the plan, some $400 million will hit nonprofit hospitals, $17 billion will come from those "who do not purchase government-approved health insurance," another $52 billion will hit workers "who fail to fully comply with government health insurance mandates," and a tax hike for Medicare will pull another $210 billion from the grocery budgets of Americans.

More than 130 top economists also submitted a document, according to the report, that "the health care bill contains a number of provisions that will eliminate jobs, reduce hours and wages and limit future job creation."

Obama's system is facing a number of lawsuits contesting its constitutionality, claiming the federal government has no right to require consumers to participate in a business transaction – the purchase of health insurance – if they choose not to.

The report says the purported small business tax credit will do almost nothing, since it phases out for businesses with more than 10 employees whose salaries average more than $25,000.

"In the weeks leading up to the vote on Obamacare, the president seized on reports of rate hikes by insurance companies to bolster support for the bill, saying that if Congress did not act, 'we'll see exploding premiums and out-of-pocket costs burn through more and more family budgets,'" the report continues. "The … Congressional Budget Office, however, estimated that the Democrats' bill would actually increase premiums for millions of families by $2,100 more in 2016 than doing nothing at all."

Combined with the president's earlier guess his plan "would lower premiums by $2,500 'for the typical family,'" the report said, "that is a $4,600 swing."

Not only will consumers spend more, the nation will go further into the red, it said.

Medicare actuary Richard Foster "estimated that national health care spending will increase by $311 billion over the next 10 years on account of the new law," it said.

While Obama promised "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan," more than 87 million Americans likely will lose their current programs under the new law, the report said.

"Of all the failures of President Obama's new health care law, perhaps the cruelest is its attack on America's seniors," the report said. "Washington Democrats treated [Medicare] as a piggy bank, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from seniors' Medicare benefits to create a new, unsustainable entitlement program," the report said.

Included are the slashing of Medicare Advantage opportunities, lower benefits and limits on access to care.

One of the most egregious failures, however, is the program's complete absence of progress to restrict use of tax money for abortion.

"Federal law has long prohibited taxpayer-subsidized abortion. The Labor/Health & Human Services/Education appropriations bill includes language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions.… Obamacare ends this 30-plus year bipartisan history by forcing taxpayers to fund abortions," the report warns.