The Miracle of Obamacare, Ridiculous Claim Edition
The President has to be getting desperate to pass his ginormous government-run health care program if he seriously thinks he can get away with a whopper like this.
“For Americans who get their insurance through their work place…how many people are getting insurance through their jobs right now. All right. Well, a lot of those folks, your employer, it is estimated, would see their premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent, which means they could give you a raise.”
That statement is immediately followed by gasps and applause. I’m not sure whether they were gasps of incredulous belief or rapturous bliss, but in either case, the President’s claim is ridiculous. Let’s say you’re paying $500 a month for your health insurance right now. If the President is right, you’ll only pay $16.66 a month under his plan. Think about that for a second. Let’s say that happens and your employer decides to split the difference with you 50-50. You’ll be getting a raise of $241.67 a month (or $2,900 a year). And your employer could pocket that much in pure Grade-A profit every year, too! So, in a company of 1,000 employees, President Obama’s fantasy employer could end up walking away with almost 3 million dollars in profit each year.
So is that what he’s really saying — that if we pass his health care plan, we could all get a $3,000 a year raise? All of us? That’s certainly what he strongly implied.
But wait. Let’s think about this. If that’s true, why hasn’t he been shouting that from the mountaintops? That is a miraculous cost reduction, which, I note, is the number one reason he’s always used for wanting to trash the current health care insurance system. Furthermore, why aren’t employers screaming that from the mountaintops? After all, they’d come out of that deal way ahead. Heck, even a small business owner with 10 employees could pocket $29,000 a year on that deal. That’s basically a brand new car each year, or a new house every nine years (pdf link).
Well, the reason you’ve only really heard this claim today is that it’s pure bunk. It’s a fib on the level of a kid telling his parents, while standing over the wreckage of the living room lamp with his baseball right next to it, that Bigfoot broke in and did it. Health care costs won’t go down in a government-run system. The government has never, ever done anything less expensively than the private sector. By its very structure, it can’t. Obamacare won’t be the exception to that rule. But, if you really think the President is on to something, take a look over at Britain where thousands have died because of high costs and too much bureaucracy. Do you think they saved 3,000 percent on their health care costs? Do you think they’re better off than we?
I think the President either needs a remedial math class or a lesson in creative storytelling.
