Cong. Carnahan on National Healthcare: “Now Is Our Time” (2009)

This Friday will mark the second anniversary of President Obama signing his unpopular health care bill into law after Democrats in Congress pushed it through both houses. Republicans have been saying for two years now that this law needs to be repealed and replaced with commonsense reforms that don’t put the government in between doctors and patients.

From the beginning, Republicans warned that Obama’s law would not live up to the promises he and Democrats in Congress made about it, and would in fact make things worse. Two years later, Politico writes, “President Barack Obama promised over and over during the health care debate that ‘if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.’ It turns out that, for a lot of people, that isn’t true. A Congressional Budget Office report issued this week says that 3 million to 5 million people could move from employer-based health care plans to government-based programs as the Affordable Care Act takes effect. And in the worst-case scenario, it could be as many as 20 million. For Obama, it’s an inconvenient truth at a really inconvenient time — coming less than two weeks before the Supreme Court begins oral arguments on the law and just as the administration touts the law’s early benefits on its second anniversary. And it’s not the only hard truth Obama and the law’s supporters are facing. No matter what they said about rising health care costs, those costs aren’t actually going to go down under health care reform. The talk about the law paying for itself is just educated guesswork. And people aren’t actually liking the law more as they learn more about it . . . .”

Politico summarizes “four inconvenient truths” about the law: “Some people won’t get to keep the coverage they like,” “Costs aren’t going to go down,” “It’s just a guess that the law can pay for itself,” and “‘The more they know, the more they’ll like it’ isn’t happening.” Since President Obama signed the law, reports have come from all over the county of health care policies being dropped or eliminated, meaning there are many people who may like their plan but won’t be able to keep it. The Obama Administration’s own Medicare actuary says that costs will go up and issued a report the AP said “found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 year.” On spending, Politico notes, “The Obama administration insists that the health care law will actually reduce the deficit — which sounds like a fantasy to many people, since the law will clearly increase spending through insurance subsidies and an expansion of Medicaid.” And polls have consistently shown that Americans don’t approve of this law, and an overwhelming majority consider the mandates in it unconstitutional.

Just today, ABC News reports, “Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate in the federal health care law or the law in its entirety, signaling the depth of public disagreement with that element of the Affordable Care Act. This ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that Americans oppose the law overall by 52-41 percent. And 67 percent believe the high court should either ditch the law or at least the portion that requires nearly all Americans to have coverage.” In fact, ABC emphasizes, “The law has never earned majority support in ABC/Post polls – and this update . . . finds a strong sense its critics are dominating the debate. Seventy percent of Americans report hearing mainly negative things about the law lately; just 19 percent say the buzz has been positive. Even among its supporters, 53 percent are hearing more negatives than positives. Among opponents this soars to 88 percent. Intensity of sentiment is more negative as well: Forty-one percent strongly oppose the law, while only a quarter strongly support it.”

Related:

Rasmussen Reports: 56% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law

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