What's Wrong With ObamaCare?

Here's A Partial List

IDB Editorial

Repeal: After a full day's reflection, we still feel that the ObamaCare ruling is an outrage. And while we acknowledge that it's now settled law, we believe that it's poor public policy and needs to be expunged from the books.

We're still nettled by the Supreme Court ruling that ObamaCare's individual mandate can stand constitutionally as a tax when Congress failed to define the penalty for failing to buy health insurance that way. But we can do nothing about that. The court has spoken.

What we can do, with an eye toward repeal, is point out just how malignant the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is.

We began this exercise on Friday, when we wrote about ObamaCare's hidden taxes. The law imposes at least 21 new or higher levies that will cost trillions. That's too much to demand of hard-pressed taxpayers.

New taxes aren't the only rising burden under ObamaCare. Far from being a law that will cut costs, it will increase them.

Yes, the president promised that his signature legislation would bend the cost curve down. But when has a government program ever done such a thing?

It won't happen with ObamaCare, though the president also swore that the legislation would not add to the federal deficit.

In March, the Congressional Budget Office said the law would cost $1.76 trillion from 2013 to 2022, nearly double the $900 billion Obama quoted in September 2009. That's only a partial picture. Beginning in 2014, the next 10 years of ObamaCare — through 2023 — will cost more than $2 trillion.

The medical overhaul is also a choice killer. Many will recall Obama promising that under his plan, "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period."

Those aren't the facts.

As we reported in April, the CBO estimates that as many as 20 million Americans will be forced out of their plans as employers toss workers into government health exchanges to avoid ObamaCare's costs.

A survey by McKinsey and Co. found that nearly one-third of employers will likely to drop coverage for their workers once ObamaCare kicks in.

And an analysis by the Medicare actuary found that ObamaCare's attacks on Medicare's private insurance options will force nearly 8 million seniors out of the coverage they've chosen.

So what else is wrong with ObamaCare? Try these:

• Consumer costs will rise. CBO says premiums will increase over the next decade faster than they did in the past five years.

• The Affordable Care Act is just the beginning. It's the door to a single-payer government system run by a DMV-type bureaucracy.

• The quality of care will suffer. The Democrats' law will chill the incentives to become a doctor, to create innovative drugs and to produce live-saving and life-enhancing medical equipment.

• Don't be surprised when treatment is rationed by government. As it takes over a larger portion of health care — it already controls nearly half — resources won't be able to keep up with demand. Somebody wins, somebody loses based on someone else's whim.

There's much more that we've covered and will cover again. And it all points to a single solution: Repeal the law before it takes deep root, and replace it with policies that put the patient in charge.