New CBO estimates of the OBAMACAARE train wreck!

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February 05, 2014
The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office delivered a damning assessment Wednesday of the Affordable Care Act, telling lawmakers that ObamaCare creates a "disincentive for people to work," adding fuel to Republican arguments that the law will hurt the economy.

The testimony from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf comes after his office released a highly controversial report that detailed how millions of workers could cut back their hours or opt out of the job market entirely because of benefits under the health law.

The White House and its Democratic allies accused Republicans, and the media, of mischaracterizing the findings. But Elmendorf backed Republicans' central argument -- fewer people will work because of the law's subsidies.

"The act creates a disincentive for people to work," Elmendorf said, under questioning from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Ryan clarified that the CBO report found not that employers would lay people off, but that more individuals would choose not to work.

"As a result ... that [lower] labor supply lowers economic growth," Ryan said.
Elmendorf answered: "Yes, that's right."

Ryan fumed that this would mean fewer people would be "joining the middle class."

"It's adding insult to injury," he said. "As the welfare state expands, the incentive to work declines -- meaning grow the government, you shrink the economy."

Elmendorf, who was addressing the House Budget Committee, did say that the subsidies provided under the Affordable Care Act would make lower-income people "better off."

And Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., top Democrat on the committee, argued that the CBO findings were still being misinterpreted. He pointed to more positive findings in the report, including that health care premiums would go down.

The CBO report on Tuesday effectively found that more people would opt to keep their income low to stay eligible for federal health care subsidies or Medicaid. The workforce changes would mean nationwide losses equal to 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021, the report said.

Republican lawmakers seized on the report as major new evidence of what they consider the failures of Obama's overhaul, the huge change in U.S. health coverage that they're trying to overturn and planning to use as a main argument against Democrats in November's midterm elections.

It's the latest indication that "the president's health care law is destroying full-time jobs," said Republican Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. "This fatally flawed health care scheme is wreaking havoc on working families nationwide," he said.

But the White House said the possible reduction would be due to voluntary steps by workers rather than businesses cutting jobs -- people having the freedom to retire early or spend more time as stay-at-home parents because they no longer had to depend only on their employers for health insurance.

The law means people "will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday.

It wasn't all bad news for the Obama administration. The CBO's wide-ranging report predicted that the federal budget deficit will fall to $514 billion this year, down from last year's $680 billion and the lowest by far since Obama took office five years ago.

The new estimates also say that the health care law will, in the short run, benefit the economy by boosting demand for goods and services because the lower-income people it helps will have more purchasing power. The report noted that the 2014 premiums that people pay for exchange coverage are coming in about 15 percent lower than projected, and the health care law, on balance, still is expected to reduce the federal deficit.

However, the budget experts see the long-term federal deficit picture worsening by about $100 billion a year through the end of the decade because of slower growth in the economy than they had previously predicted.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...creates-disincentive-to-work/?intcmp=HPBucket

 

Because they may want to stay home with their kids, they may want to retire before 65 and the only thing preventing them from doing this is the high cost of health insurance. That's why.

You and I both know that the original Right-wing talking point was that over 2 million jobs were going to be lost and as we discovered that was just total BS. So now you shift from that nonsense to making people work when they might want the freedom to stay home. It still is an option for some people but apparently not in Right-wing Bizzaro World.

 

Why should anyone be forced to work for a living? I guess because "we" elected Obama and the Congress. Maybe it will be bad enough to change Congress - Ihope and pray!

 

So this is the story line FOX and the GOP is going with now? I think their credibility, if they ever had any, flew out the window with their lies from yesterday's CBO misrepresentation. But YOU still believe them eh? Lies, damn lies, and Fox News.

 

Oh, I see. Now, the CBO is (as you say) "misrepresenting facts" and FOX is at fault for reporting the news. Pull your head out of the sand, Ostrich Boy.

 

Why don't you hope and pray for the sense to pull your head out of your ass? Just a thought.

Pu-Leeeease point out where we are paying for these people not to work? How does a woman or a man staying home raising their kids cost the tax payers anything? How does a person living on his or her pension cost the tax payers anything? Think through your idiotic talking points for a change before spewing them.

 

I see the problem with you dolts, you simply can't interpret anything you read. Reading comprehension seems to elude you.

 

If they are not working, just who do you think is paying for those credits they receive to pay for their Obamacare. Your fairy godmother?

 

No, it's the fairy godfather:

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You know, moron joe's posts have me thinking...I worked hard to put myself in a postion to retire early...maybe I shouldn't have done that. If the liberal narrative says it's unfair to make people work, where can I go to request a credit?

 

Then why stop at just health insurance? Why not apply it across the spectrum of personal finance?

 

So you're chiding people for being able to retire early while you yourself retired early? And you're calling others morons? Hum?

 

But I would have never even considered retiring early if the rest of the country would be on the hook to pay for something I was capable of paying for myself!

 

You really are thick. And I don't just mean fat. Assuming that they are even eligible for these credits, which is by no means a given, they still pay premiums in accordance with their income level and I seriously doubt that people working for nothing more than health care coverage are going to go into poverty just because they get health care. That is just another case of the Right-wing seeing the worst in people. You do it constantly.

 

But other Americans would? And you know this how? Why are you so superior to the the rest of the country?

 

Somebody has to pay for my healthcare if I decide not to. Just who do you think that somebody might possibly be? Hmmmm

 

You are required by law to have health care. You can't decide not to. Good luck with that. Now answer my question. Why are you so morally superior to other Americans that you see as lazy scum? Why have you put yourself on a pedestal while seeing every other American as pond scum? Must be nice to be you eh?

 

I am sure we could take up a collection to give him a free visit to the Kevorkian clinic

 

How dense are you? Or are you just trying to deflect attention away from the stupity of your premise?
What part of what I've posted do you claim demonstrates any form of moral superiority? It's a simple case of those who are able to provide for themselves should. The "lazy scum" as you call them would be the folks who are capable of working to pay for their own expenses but choose not to (your words!) now that Obamacare is available. If I don't need a taxpayer subsidy to pay for my healthcare, can I get my homeowner's covered instead? Afterall, I am retired you know.

 

Here is the problem with these silly Right-wingers... They believe their own rhetoric that says that they are the only people in the country that have made it on their own without government help. From a study done at Cornell University, we know that this belief is highly unlikely. It's a lie some people tell themselves in my opinion to make themselves feel superior to people at the lower end of the economic ladder.
The truth is that when asked if they had ever benefited form a government program, 57% of the respondents said no. When shown a list of government programs, it was found that 94% had benefited from at least 1 government program and that the average was 4 government programs. People simply don't know things like the federal mortgage tax credit is a direct payment from the federal government. All the "self-made" Right-wingers are just ignorant of the ground they stand on and uninterested in knowing the truth.