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Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, had asked his staff to compute the long-term costs of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). After three months of combing through the hundreds of pages of the law and comparing their expected costs to the United States’ fiscal outlook for the next 75 years — just as the government currently does for other programs such as Social Security and Medicare — Sessions’ staff estimated that ObamaCare has created a $17 trillion unfunded liability for the U.S. government.

D4PC Morning Rounds: Monday July 18, 2011

Obamacare Failures

Over the past week, multiple reports have showed how Obamacare has not lived up to its promises, delivering higher premiums, more spending, and new mandates on job creators:

May 13—More Waivers Granted:  “As of the end of April 2011, a total of 1,372 one-year waivers have been granted.” – Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

• Over three million people are in plans receiving waivers, more than half of them in union plans—raising questions about why many traditional Democrat allies have received exemptions.

May 15—Penalties on Job Creators:  “For a midsize nursing home, that penalty [under Obamacare’s employer mandate] could easily exceed $200,000 a year.”– New York Times 

• These penalties are on top of payment reductions that the Medicare actuary stated could cause as many as 40 percent of medical providers to become unprofitable in the long term.

May 18—Nearly Half of Employers Could Drop Coverage:  “84% of companies indicated they would make other changes to their plans [e.g., raising premiums and co-payments] to offset costs associated with [Obamacare].” – Price Waterhouse Coopers employer survey 

• According to the survey, nearly half of employers “indicated they were likely to change subsidies for employee medical coverage”—“dumping” their employees on to government-run exchanges and causing the cost of taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies to skyrocket.

May 19—Skyrocketing Premiums:  “Employers can expect to see an acceleration in health care cost increases in 2012, with expenses rising 8.5 percent next year.” – Marketwatch 

• This rising rate of health spending stands in sharp contrast to candidate Obama’s repeated promises that he would lower premiums by $2,500 for the average family during his first term.

May 20—Medicare Actuary Exposes Obamacare’s Unrealistic Assumptions:  “The current law Medicare expenditure projections are based on payment updates that have a strong likelihood of not being feasible.” – Medicare Office of the Actuary

• In releasing its illustrative alternative scenario for Medicare’s fiscal future, the actuary noted that Obamacare’s payment reductions could cause up to 40 percent of providers to become unprofitable, and are likely to be overridden because not doing so would “jeopardize Medicare beneficiaries’ access to mainstream medical care.”