Schumer: Okay, Fine -- Obamacare is Partially Responsible for Rising Premiums

Guy Benson | May 03, 2013 4:55 PM

A perfect bookend to the week, particularly in light of yesterday's news. Maybe all those discussions between Rubio and Schumer are paying off after all:

SCHUMER: Our insurance department is in power to protect families. We’re going to watch them like a hawk to make sure they do that. And if they don’t, those rates could go through the roof.

REPORTER: Is it because of Obamacare?

SCHUMER: It’s in part because of Obamacare, but healthcare costs have been going up in double digits for years and years.

Considering Schumer's role as Senate Democrats' chief messaging guru, this is big. Still, I feel compelled to deconstruct his Obamacare goalpost shifting, which is now par for the course on the Left, out of necessity. The first part of his answer is all about coercive government price controls. In short, Obamacare places all sorts of costly mandates on private insurers. To comply with said mandates, insurers raise premiums in order to stay in business. Then "insurance departments" step in and veto the hikes, in order to "protect families." Lawsuits, disruptions, and an exodus from the market ensues. If liberals are intent on driving private insurance into the grave -- and they are -- this is how they'll do it, absent a "public option," which would speed the process along. The second statement Schumer makes is a straight-up bogus excuse.

Sure, Obamacare plays a role in this, but "costs have been going up in double digits for years and years." It's absolutely true that healthcare costs have risen steadily for quite some time. But it's also true that Obamacare was ostensibly passed to reverse this trend. Not slow it. Not curb it. Reverse it, by $2,500 per family. Now Democrat after Democrat after Democrat is acknowledging what virtually every analysis has projected: The law won't contain costs as promised. The "Affordable Care Act" is nothing of the sort. Welcome to reality, Sen. Schumer. Parting quotations:

Now move along and enjoy your awesome benefits, you ignorant ingrates.

UPDATE - Oops, that was too much truth-telling for one day. Schumer's backtracking, "clarifying" that Obamacare is slowing the rise of healthcare costs and improving the quality of care, neither of which is true.