UNITE HERE—the first union to endorse Obama for president—has released a scathing report on Obamacare. Entitled, “The Irony of Obamacare: Making Inequality Worse,” UNITE HERE charges that the administration is putting union health care into a “death spiral,” leading to the destruction of healthcare plans we were promised we could keep.
“The ACA [Affordable Care Act] threatens the middle class with higher premiums, loss of hours, and a shift to part-time work and less comprehensive coverage,” the report points out. It also argues that the ACA will transfer a billion dollars in wealth to insurance companies, create an uneven playing field in the market, and force employers to slash hours and cut back on pay.
And then, the President’s big-time supporter concludes, “it is ironic that the Administration is now highlighting issues of economic inequality without acting to preserve health plans that have been achieving the goals of the ACA for decades. Without a smart fix, the ACA will heighten the inequality that the Administration seeks to reduce.”
Even Obama’s own internal White House studies have reported from the beginning that 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual insurance market would lose their health coverage. In fact, the IRS is predicting that health insurance for the typical American family will be $20,000 per year by 2016. In short, the President’s plan to destroy the middle class is nearly complete. How can middle class Americans possibly hope to spend $20,000 on health insurance and have anything left for food, housing, and basic transportation?
By demanding that we buy health insurance from billion-dollar insurance companies, the Obama Administration is handing health insurance companies 20 to 40 million new customers, and in many cases, the government is paying the bill. Where does the government get the money? Middle class taxpayers. Just ask the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which projects that over $1 trillion will be redistributed from taxpayers to insurance companies.
Adding to UNITE HERE’s eye-opening report, new numbers from the CBO are unmasking Obamacare as the perfect job-killing machine. Millions have already been downsized from full-time to part-time work, and an additional 2.3 million full-time jobs will be eliminated over the next decade. And it’s just getting started.
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