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Obamacare Leftist Ideology

Ignore Obamacare noise By E.J. Dionne

[rebuttal comments included]

WASHINGTON — One of the best arguments for health insurance reform is that our traditional employer based system often locked people into jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t because they feared they wouldn’t be able to get affordable coverage elsewhere.

This worry was pronounced for people with pre-existing conditions but not limited to them. Consider families with young children in which one of the parents would like to get out of the formal labor market for a while to take care of the kids. In the old system, the choices of such couples were constrained if only one of the two received employer-provided family coverage.

Or ponder the fate of a 64-year-old with a condition that leaves her in great pain. She has the savings to retire but can’t exercise this option until she is eligible for Medicare. Is it a good thing to force her to stay in her job? Is it bad to open her job to someone else?
["The [UnAffordable Care] Act creates a disincentive for people to work," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told Congress Wednesday. Furthermore, he said, that reduced labor participation "is the central factor in slowing economic growth." Elmendorf's testimony came just a day after the CBO's bombshell report on the detrimental economic effects of ObamaCare. In short, the law's subsidies create an incentive for people to reduce work hours or avoid full-time jobs that would move their income out of subsidy range. For some, earning $1 more could cost up to $20,000 more for insurance. The administration still insists this isn't a bug; it's a feature. Jay Carney says now families can "make a decision about how they will work, and if they will work." All while the people who do work subsidize the people who choose not to. Ain't socialism grand?]

By broadening access to health insurance, the Affordable Care Act ends the tyranny of “job lock,” which is what the much-misrepresented Congressional Budget Office study of the law released on Tuesday shows. The new law increases both personal autonomy and market rationality by ending the distortions in behavior the old arrangements were creating.

But that’s not how the study has been interpreted, particularly by enemies of the law. Typical was a tweet from the National Republican Congressional Committee declaring that “#ObamaCare is hurting the economy, will cost 2.5 millions (sic) jobs.”
[Notice how D.J. uses the word "interpreted" while ignoring his spin in direct opposition to the actual quote of the CBO Director.  Further, one has only to look at the history of employer based insurance; it was for the very purpose of acquiring and keeping employees.  None had to accept and none were ever required to participate.  "..tyranny of 'job lock'" Really more made up left wing rhetoric]

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s intrepid fact checker, replied firmly: “No, CBO did not say Obamacare will kill 2 million jobs.” What the report said, as the Wall Street Journal accurately summarized it, is that the law “will reduce the total number of hours Americans work by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time jobs.”

[“CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive,” the nonpartisan tax agency said in its economic outlook.] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/4/cbo-obamacare-push-2m-workers-out-labor-market/#ixzz2sZjkLpbI

Oh my God, say opponents of the ACA, here is the government encouraging sloth! That’s true only if you wish to take away the choices the law gives that 64-year-old or to those moms and dads looking for more time to care for their children. Many on the right love family values until they are taken seriously enough to involve giving parents/workers more control over their lives. And it’s sometimes an economic benefit when some share of the labor force reduces hours or stops working altogether. At a time of elevated unemployment, others will take their place. The CBO was careful to underscore that “if some people seek to work less, other applicants will be readily available to fill those positions and the overall effect on employment will be muted.”
[Obama’s Chairman of his Economic Council try to explain it’s a good thing to lose your job or work less hours because you’ll be receiving more government subsidies or taxpayer largesse was unconscionable. White House chief economic adviser Jason Furman said the health care law is about giving workers more choices and having more quality family time.]

The CBO did point to an inevitable problem in how the ACA’s subsidies for buying health insurance operate. As your income rises, your subsidy goes down and eventually disappears. This is, as the CBO notes, a kind of “tax.” The report says that if the “subsidies are phased out with rising income in order to limit their total costs, the phaseout effectively raises people’s marginal tax rates (the tax rates applying to their last dollar of income), thus discouraging work.”

But the answer to this is either to make the law’s subsidies more generous or to guarantee everyone health insurance, single-payer style.

[Come on E.J. we are not that stupid.  You're left wing solution is to increase subsidies by stealing from those that work or to do the same under a single payer system rung by the government]

The rest of the CBO report contained much good news for Obamacare: insurance premiums under the law are 15 percent lower than originally forecast; “the slowdown in Medicare cost growth” is “broad and persistent”; and enrollments will catch up over time to where they would have been absent Obamacare’s troubled rollout.
[No E.J., Americans are fearful of starting a new business, changing jobs or becoming an entrepreneur because of the horrific economic situation resulting from Obama administration policies and the regulatory environment that presents more obstacles than access to small business growth. And I don’t think any of the long-term unemployed would say they’re delighted to spend more time at home. “The CBO said the number of workers dropping out of the labor force will grow from 2 million in 2017 to 2.5 million by 2024. Although part of those numbers are attributed to job cuts, the vast majority represent workers who decide it makes more sense to stay home or work fewer hours, weighing the higher taxes they pay in the workforce versus their qualifications for benefits if they drop out.]

[Americans were told Obamacare would create more jobs. That is a lie. Now Obama and his progressive socialist acolytes are working on “fundamentally transforming” the American work ethic.]

The reaction to the CBO study is an example of how willfully stupid the debate over Obamacare has become. Opponents don’t look to a painstaking analysis for enlightenment. They twist its findings and turn them into dishonest slogans. Too often, the media go along by highlighting the study’s political impact rather than focusing on what it actually says. My bet is that our citizens are smarter than this. [He in fact counts on the opposite] They will ignore the noise and judge Obamacare by how it works. [The intent of the Obama administration is to force Americans into job loss or part-time employment and then provide government compensation. Obamacare is not a failure, sadly it’s doing exactly what it was intended to do, collapse the healthcare industry and health insurance markets.]

Welcome to Obama’s America where you choose government largesse over hard work.

And as long as the progressives supply the government benefits, guess for whom those in this dependency state will vote? Of course voters will keep in power whoever feeds them. And that’s the insidious plan behind all of this. Power – over you, my friends.

We were told Obamacare would increase jobs and help the economy, not true. We were told we could keep our health insurance and doctors, not true. We were told it was meant to provide affordable health insurance, not true. We were told it would provide coverage to those without health insurance – but more people lost their insurance and most are just signing up for Medicaid. We were told it wouldn’t affect the debt or deficit, but the original cost of Obamacare in 2010 was $940 billion, and now it is over $1.7 trillion, and rising. We were told there would be a $2500 decrease in premiums, nah.

It all sounded good in theory, because liberal progressives are academics who don’t live in the world of reality and practical implementation — just like the “War on Poverty” which after $20 trillion has only expanded poverty.

Democrats Spinning Madly on Devastating CBO Report

How does one spin the unspinnable? By trying to convince the country that millions of Americans leaving the full-time workforce is somehow good news. Here's White House economist Jason Furman doing his best to put a happy sheen on the terrible news, arguing that more Americans will be liberated to not work, or reduce their productivity. It's all about "choice," or something:

As I said, good luck with that. Americans differ on many issues, but there's near unanimity on the notion that our economy needs more people working, not fewer. Especially with the workforce participation rate at a 36-year low, artificially holding down the (still too high) unemployment rate -- which doesn't calculate those who've given up looking for work. The nonpartisan CBO has concluded that the "Affordable" Care Act will cost more than $2 trillion over its first decade of full implementation, will slow job creation in coming years, will retard economic growth, and will reduce the US labor force by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time jobs. White House spokesman Jay Carney and other Democrats continue to claim that this is good news because people won't be "trapped" in jobs."

Democrats are increasingly employing a new tack in the battle over a projected reduction of two million jobs due to Obamacare, saying the decline is actually the result of people not being required to work anymore when they don't want to -- a concept labeled "job lock."

All this while launching a new battle cry of "Income Equality" - blatant and unbridled hypocrisy'

Actually, CBO also attributes the falling employment outcome to the lack of hiring and shaved hours resulting from Obamacare's employer mandate, in addition to the negative impact of its tax increases. But the bulk of this negative effect is, in fact, traced to people making the calculation that it's more beneficial not to work than to run the risk of earning too much money to qualify for generous Obamacare benefits. Conservatives often accuse liberals of being ideological supporters of an ever-growing welfare state. Liberals indignantly respond that of course they're not in favor of more government dependence. But here they are cheering a new entitlement program for "liberating" people from work. Remember, these people can't become less self-sufficient without other people picking up the slack. In this case, hardworking taxpayers will pay the tab for others choosing to dramatically scale back (or end) their workload. And the beneficiaries' healthcare subsidies will be "paid for" through higher costs for other people, including many in the middle class. Congratulations, middle class taxpayers, you're working harder, taking home less pay, and spending more on health coverage to help millions of people voluntarily quit their jobs or retire early. That shifts burdens onto the middle class, and destroys billions of dollars in worker productivity. How about that "Income Equality war chant?" And it's all thanks to Obamacare, which is unquestionably an income redistributionist scheme. Here is CBO director Douglas Elmendorf explaining the perverse incentives:

CBO report low-balls Obamacare effects on employment

A new Congressional Budget Office report once again low-balls the effects of the Affordable Care Act on labor force participation and the U.S. economy. Gross domestic product growth and employment for most workers will be harmed. The CBO report estimated employment will be cut 1.5-2 percent, thanks to workers choosing to cut hours or not work at all to obtain Obamacare subsidies for private insurance or maintain eligibility for Medicaid.

The report says, lower employment translates into a 1 percent reduction in workers' compensation, owing to the concentration of those in low-wage categories. However, the report fails to adequately calibrate the effects of higher Medicare taxes and the surcharge on interest, dividends and capital gains on the participation of older workers -- especially high-productivity and entrepreneurial workers and business owners over 50 but heretofore not yet inclined to cut hours or retire altogether.

In addition, it fails to consider the consequences of distorted career paths on labor productivity, negative effects on research and development spending and lower investment overall in the United States. Those activities will be lost to China, Japan and Germany and other competitors in Asia and Europe owing to their lower healthcare costs.

Major industrialized competitors in Europe and Asia spend 9-12 percent of GDP and often attain higher healthcare outcomes, while the United States spends 18 percent. Medicare's and Medicaid's own actuaries expect the latter figure to rise under Obamacare, thanks to the inadequacies of cost controls.

Whether paid through direct taxes, business outlays for health insurance or penalties for failing to provide healthcare, as mandated by the Affordable Care Act, those costs weigh heavily on cost competitiveness and decisions to locate manufacturing and service activities in the United States, especially those critical to R&D effort and innovation.

The Obama administration argues that subsidies for healthcare and Medicaid give Americans more personal choices and decisions not to work improve the performance of the economy. Taken to its logical conclusion, the administration should provide direct cash payments to workers to abstain from seeking employment.

Rolling it all up, the effects on the economy beginning this year and escalating through the decade is likely in the range of $240 billion to $320 billion.

This will damage the viability of the Social Security trust funds and shake state and local government finances. More cities, like Detroit, will face bankruptcies. States like Illinois will face lower credit rating and be forced to reduce funding for education, public safety and the like.

By failing to address the handicap imposed on U.S. businesses by higher healthcare costs, the Affordable Care Act, like other efforts to equalize income, will slow growth to a pace more akin to lethargic European economies than emerging competitors in Asia.

CBO: Obamacare Will 'Reduce Incentives to Work;' WH Spins It As 'Choice'

 (CNSNews.com) - For some Americans, Obamacare's subsidies will "reduce incentives to work," the Congressional Budget Office reported on Tuesday.

That's partly because as incomes rise, Obamacare's subsidies will decline -- "thus making work less attractive" for people on the lower end of the wage scale. "As a result, some people will choose not to work or will work less -- thus substituting other activities for work," the report said.

The Obama White House -- trying to turn a negative (less work, more entitlements) into a positive -- has seized on the word "choice."

"This is a choice on the part of workers," Jason Furman, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

According to Furman, the CBO reported "that workers will choose (to) supply less labor." It's not that businesses are cutting jobs, he insisted. It's that workers will choose to work less, or not at all. (This puts a greater burden on full-time workers, whose taxes subsidize those who choose to work less.)

"So to some degree this might be somebody who used to work 60 hours because they needed health insurance, and that was the only job that offered it, and now they can get a different job at 35 hours that doesn't offer health insurance, but they're getting it through this (Obamacare exchanges) and they're switching from one to the other, and that's a better choice for that person, and this has given them that option that they didn't used to have," Furman said.

CBO said Obamacare's largest impact on labor markets will probably happen after 2016, once the law's major provisions have taken full effect.

The report (Appendix C) says: "CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive.

"The reduction in CBO’s projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024." (In other words, the economy will lose the equivalent of 2 million full-time workers by 2017 and 2.5 million by 2024.) "Although CBO projects that total employment...will increase over the coming decade, that increase will be smaller than it would have been in the absence of the ACA."

Furman said, "[T]here is no dispute that the Affordable Care Act provides people with new options, and that people who today are doing a set of things because they don't have options and choices, will be able to do new things that they would not have otherwise chosen to do, in many cases not have been able to do."

To further illustrate the concept of choice, Furman offered the example of someone enrolled in Medicaid:

"There's some evidence that if you have just a single person, Medicaid is not going to impact their choice about working, and that's because if you are the only breadwinner in your family because you're the only person in your family, you're going to need to have a job; you're going to need to work. There have been studies that have found that if two people are married and they get Medicaid that that might lead a spouse who otherwise would have gotten a job and worked really hard to buy health care for the whole family -- might not need to get a full-time job, might get a part-time job and have more time to spend with their children as a result of the new option they have for health care.

"That is one of the types of choices that people would have now that they wouldn't necessarily have had before. And that's one of the choices in the types of studies that CBO's relying on in making this finding."

Asked if Obamacare's subsidies will "incentivize" some people to work less, Furman said it could be an incentive for them to "do more."  "There's an incentive for more entrepreneurship, because they're not locked into a job, there's an incentive for ... employers to be able to hire more people, because the cost of health care is lower. There's an incentive to hire workers who are going to be absentees less.

"So I think there's a whole bunch of puts and takes here that we need to take into account."

Furman also insisted that the CBO's findings are not an argument to get rid of Obamacare:

"And I have no doubt that if, for example, we got rid of Social Security and Medicare, there are many 95-year-olds that would choose to work more to avoid, you know, potentially starving or to give themselves an opportunity to get health care. I don't think anyone would say that was a compelling argument to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Similarly, here CBO's analysis itself is about the choices that workers are making in the face of new options afforded to them by the Affordable Care Act, not something about firms destroying jobs."

Furman said he thinks the CBO "does excellent work," but -- "No matter how excellent any organization's work is, number one, it's subject to be misinterpreted, and a lot of what I've been talking about here is the way that this has been interpreted." He also said the report "doesn't take into account every factor, and there's uncertainty and debate around it."

IRS Chief Apologizes

New IRS Commissioner John Koskinen did the unthinkable: He apologized for his agency's targeting of Tea Party groups. It's "intolerable," he said, and "It won't happen going forward." Furthermore, "to the extent that people suffered accordingly, I apologize for that." His apology is all fine and good, but it doesn't fix the problem or hold anyone accountable for hindering the Tea Party to the extent that the legitimacy of Barack Obama's re-election is called into question. And besides, Obama told us just Sunday that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" at the IRS. The sad thing isn't even that he lied again, it's that low-info voters still believe him.