Just three months ago, President Obama was trying to claim that his signature domestic accomplishment, Obamacare, was responsible for slowing health care spending in the United States. That claim was widely debunked by fact checkers at the time since health care spending began to fall long before Obamacare was passed, and has since began to rise.
But now all pretense that Obamacare would lower health care costs has been destroyed.
Today, the Commerce Department reported that health care spending spiked by a staggering 9.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014, the fastest rate since 1980, according to The Washington Examiner's Phil Klein. And a Commerce Department spokesman admitted to Budiness Insider that health care spending explosion "reflects additional spending associated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act."
The Commerce Department also reported today that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of U.S. economic strength, fell to an almost non-existent .1 percent. Analysts had expected at growth at least 10 times as large.
And don't try and blame weather for Obama's weak economy. Canada's economy grew more in February than the U.S. did in the entire first quarter, despite experiencing a colder winter than the U.S. did.
Maybe forcing millions of Americans to buy health insurance they don't want and can't afford isn't all that great for economic growth.