Obamacare's 5th Birthday

Today in Washington, D.C. - March 23, 2015
The House reconvened at noon today. The House will do some morning business, no bills, and then recess until 4:00 p.m. today.

The Senate reconvened at noon today, and began consideration of S. Con. Res. 11, the budget resolution passed by the Senate Budget Committee. This begins 50 hours of debate on the budget.

At 5:30 PM, the Senate will vote on at least one amendment to the budget.

Five years ago today, President Obama signed into law Democrats’ unpopular health care legislation, passed on a purely partisan basis, over the objections of the American people.

Speaker Boehner remarked on ObamaCare’s fifth anniversary: “Five years after ramming ObamaCare into law, the president continues to mislead Americans about its legacy of broken promises. The president says his law is working ‘better than expected,’ even as premiums and deductibles rise, the website remains a mess, and workers across America have had their hours and wages slashed. Every week, new stories pour in from Ohio families, seniors and small businesses struggling to deal with canceled plans and losing access to doctors. If ObamaCare is truly working better than the president expected, it only shows the extent to which he hid the truth about the law while selling it.

“In the House, Republicans are listening to the American people and putting their priorities first. This year the House passed a commonsense bill to restore the 40-hour work week by scrapping rules in ObamaCare that have become a significant barrier to job growth and higher wages, and once again we’ve put forward a responsible, balanced budget that repeals the president’s fundamentally-flawed law and paves the way for real solutions to lower costs and protect jobs.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last night, “Obamacare has been one rolling disaster after another: it raided Medicare to finance more government spending; it led to cancelled health plans for many who’d been told they’d be able to keep what they had and liked; and now it’s causing even more headaches at tax time. Fewer choices, higher costs, increased taxes, broken promises—and it’s still not working like the President said it would.”

Democrats said the law would lower health insurance premiums. It didn’t. The president said that “it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.” It hasn’t. The president claimed that, under Obamacare, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” That was deemed the “Lie of the Year” in 2013.

On the Senate floor this afternoon, Leader McConnell summarized the past five years of Obamacare: “Five years ago today, a partisan Obamacare bill was signed into law over the objections of the American people. It was rushed through in defiance of the experts who warned it would result in higher costs, fewer choices, and broken promises for the Middle Class.

“And, tragically, that’s just what we’ve seen. Millions of Americans lost health plans they were promised they could keep. Premiums spiked. Deductibles skyrocketed. Tax time became even more of a burden, often a costlier one. And for too many, family doctors and trusted hospitals fell out of network.”

Meanwhile, Obamacare’s failures keep rolling along. The AP reported last week, “Complying with the health care law is costing small businesses thousands of dollars that they didn't have to spend before the new regulations went into effect. Brad Mete estimates his staffing company, Affinity Resources, will spend $100,000 this year on record-keeping and filing documents with the government. He's hired two extra staffers and is spending more on services from its human resources provider.

“The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers' hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance. Many small businesses don't have the human resources departments or computer systems that large companies have, making it harder to handle the paperwork. On average, complying with the law costs small businesses more than $15,000 a year, according to a survey released a year ago by the National Small Business Association. ‘It's a horrible hassle,’ says Mete, managing partner of the Miami-based company.”

Also last week, The Washington Post reported on the ongoing squeeze Obamacare has put on rural hospitals, with many forced to close over the last five years. “The Kansas-based National Rural Health Association, which represents about 2,000 small hospitals across the country and other rural care providers, says that 48 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, the majority in Southern states, and 283 others are in trouble. In Texas alone, 10 have closed. . . .

“Experts and practitioners cite declining federal reimbursements for hospitals under the Affordable Care Act as the principal reasons for the recent closures. . . .

“Another issue is the deductibles charged by some of the new insurance plans created under the health law. In many cases, they ‘are running between $2,500 and $5,000,’ and people can’t pay them, said Maggie Elehwany, chief lobbyist for the Rural Health Association.”

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