When the Patient and Affordable Care Act was on its way to becoming law two years ago this month, President Obama promised the American people that those who liked their health insurance plans – no matter what – would be able to keep them. Period.
Today, however, at the request of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report estimating that three to five million Americans every year from 2019 through 2022 will be forced out of their employer-provided health care plans. As a result, Chairman Ryan released the following statement:
President Obama’s string of empty promises is quickly becoming a disappointing trail of broken promises. He promised Americans that his overhaul of the health care sector would not jeopardize the health coverage of those who liked what they had. As nonpartisan analysts made clear today, millions of Americans will soon learn the hard way that Washington’s overreach into their health care decisions will result in sharp disruptions to their coverage and their care. The President’s disastrous health care law continues to unravel. To advance bipartisan, patient-centered solutions, the President’s partisan roadblock must be repealed.
As Guy reported earlier this week, the CBO also uncovered how President Obama’s so-called ‘signature legislative achievement’ will cost as much as 2 trillion dollars over the next ten years, nearly double the projected price tag. Both of these reports underscore why health care – and, specifically, the repeal of Obamacare – is one of the most important issues to voters in 2012. In fact, 53 percent of Americans polled in a dozen battleground states last month said that President Obama’s health care law may hurt their families over the long run. If anything, these latest projections confirm their worst suspicions – namely, millions of Americans (according to government estimates) will lose their employer-provided health insurance before 2022.
This isn’t surprising. After all, during the 2008 campaign, then-Senator Obama issued a series of promises that were subsequently broken or forgotten after he took office. Still, this begs an important question: How many more lies can the American people take?