President Barack Obama promised that Obamacare would cut family health insurance premiums by $2,500 by the end of the first term–but instead they have risen by $3,000, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by Investor’s Business Daily.
The cost of health insurance today is more than 50% higher than Obama promised it would be–and the costs are expected to continue to rise as Obamacare is impemented.
John Merline of Investor’s Business Daily notes the rising costs specifically contradict a campaign promise Obama reiterated several times, including in debates with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and at events along the 2008 campaign trail.
Furthermore, the data show that the rise in family premium costs, largely attributable to the costs of complying with Obamacare, has outpaced the rise in costs under eight years in the previous four years of George W. Bush.
Health insurance companies have already been required to provide additional coverage for so-called “children” up to age 26, among other changes. That coverage is described by Obama as “free,” but in fact the costs are borne by other patients.
Obamacare also does nothing to change the underlying incentives driving the rising costs of health care, and in fact makes them worse by adding mandates and reducing patients’ choices.
Over the next four years, if Obama is re-elected and Obamacare is not repealed, the federal government will have to apply cost controls, resulting in the rationing of health care by bureaucrats and/or hospitals.
That is why the Obama administration placed such a heavy emphasis on the Independent Payments Advisory Board–and why vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has spent so much time attacking it.
Regardless, the central promise of Obamacare–that it would “bend the cost curve down,” not just overall but on a family level–has been broken, as critics said it would be.
The question “are you better off than you were four years ago” is answered with a clear “no” for American families when it comes to health insurance prices–along with rising gas prices and declining household wealth. Four more years will likely be even worse.
This post has been updated since first posted.
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