Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Which Is Greater: $2 Billion or $843 Billion…?

Yesterday the Administration released a report claiming that Obamacare saved Americans from more than $2 billion in health insurance premiums.  The report includes many questionable assumptions; one footnote admits the claim that rate review reduced individual insurance premiums by 1.4 percent was “not weighted by enrollment” – meaning that the numbers in the report could have very little resemblance to what individuals actually purchased in the “real world.”  Politico concluded this morning that the HHS “analysis” was deceptive:

[Administration officials] admitted during a conference call yesterday that the report did not distinguish between savings from rate reviews that would have been achieved by the state systems in place before [Obamacare] came along and savings from the law’s new mandatory review of double-digit increases, for instance.  And it did not estimate what greater savings had been gotten from the substantial assistance HHS has given to states to beef up their rate review operations.  Long story short: The lead on the press release — “The health care law — the Affordable Care Act — has saved consumers an estimated $2.1 billion on health insurance premiums” — is a little misleading.

Of course, there’s a reason why the Administration felt the need to put out this “misleading” report yesterday – to distract from Tuesday’s coverage of the annual Kaiser survey on employer-provided insurance, which showed that premiums went up by nearly $700 per family this year.  That increase is in direct contradiction to candidate Obama’s repeated promises to CUT premiums by $2,500 per family.  Overall, premiums have gone up by $3,065 per family since Barack Obama was elected President, compared to his promise that premiums would go down by $2,500 per family.

In light of yesterday’s Kaiser Foundation study, and today’s release of updated Census Bureau data on health insurance coverage, we’ve revised the JEC paper released last month on the premium impact of Obamacare’s failure to deliver.  The updated JEC report, which is available here, finds that the average family has paid $12,791 more in health insurance premiums over the past four years due to Barack Obama’s failed premium promise – and the failed promise has cost the economy as a whole more than $843 billion.

I’m no math major, but last time I checked, $843 billion was a LOT bigger than $2 billion.  Meaning that even if you think yesterday’s HHS report isn’t “misleading,” it’s still a mere drop in the bucket when compared to Obamacare’s much larger failure to deliver for the American people.