CBO REPORT UNINTENTIONALLY TAKES A SHOT AT OBAMACARE

 

…President Obama signing the ACA, “Obamacare”, into law.

 

President Obama’s political sidekick, the CBO Report, is giving the Obama administration a very big headache.

For years, the Democrats have used the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to show that the ACA (Obamacare) would cut health-care costs and reduce deficits.  They have used the CBO Reports many times to show that the new ACA would save lives, lower health care costs and reduce the deficit.

As was stated by another op-ed writer after this latest CBO Report, “Live by the sword, die by the sword, the Bible tells us. But in Washington, it’s slightly different: Live by the CBO, die by the CBO.”

 

Well, maybe.

The Republicans in Washington are really rubbing their hands together for the up-coming mid-term elections, as the CBO’s latest report has now given them the snippets of information they need to go after Obamacare.  This will obviously fire up and get the right-wing conservatives to the polls in November to vote against the Democrats.

But what the CBO is saying is not actually as bad as the Republicans will make it sound, especially when you understand ALL of the report's information.  But unfortunately, the report does state that, “The [ACA] law would reduce the workforce in 2021 by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers, well more than the 800,000 originally anticipated.” 

 

Now, even the head of the CBO has stated that this statement should not be interpreted as a loss of American jobs.  They are instead a new set of circumstances for the ability of the American worker to work fewer hours in the future.  But forget getting that kind of explanation from any Republican. This CBO statement is now just more red meat for the GOP.

Sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it.  The reality of the CBO statement is that with our aging workforce and decreasing population, more people will be retiring, more working fewer hours and more will be passing on.  In addition, as the health care program takes hold, more families with 2 working grown-ups will have the option for one worker to no longer keep working, or working full-time, just to keep their health care coverage. In other words, no more “Job Lock” for locking working people into a job, well beyond their normal retirement age.

But for the Republicans, all they are going to say to that is: “Obamacare would reduce the workforce in 2021 by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers,” period, and they will make it sound like Obamacare causes unwanted job losses.

Due to this reduction in full-time workers, the CBO also says , “This will inevitably be a drag on economic growth, as more people decide government handouts [insurance subsidies] are more attractive than working more and paying even higher taxes.” Talk about throwing gas on an open flame for the Republicans.  The GOP will now go nuts in quoting that little gem.

However, Mr. Jason Furman, the head of the Council of Economic Advisers, argues that the Affordable Care Act couldn’t possibly be a job killer because 8.1 million jobs has been created since it became law.

Gene Sperling, the White House top economic-policy adviser told CNN that he totally rejected the CBO’s findings. “When you have two parents and they’re both working full time to provide health care and they don’t feel they’re there to do homework with their kids, this allows one of [them] to work a little less because they have health care.  That’s not costing jobs,” Sperling argued.

But there are some other good parts of the report.  But I’m sure you will never hear about them from a Republican politician, or from Fox News.

One good news item from the report is that: “Insurance premiums are lower than expected, and there is no compelling evidence that employers are shifting to part-time jobs in response to the law.” In addition, the law will give health insurance to an additional 13 million people this year and 25 million in 2016 and beyond.

But already, Fox News has put up a breaking-news banner saying: “Bombshell CBO report predicts 2.3 million jobs will be lost under Obamacare.”

Republicans immediately appeared on the Senate floor to tout the report’s findings. For a brief time, the CBO web site even went down due to the high increase in internet traffic.

With all that the Obama administration has gone through in 2013, they sure didn’t need this to come out now as misinformation.  And this will be excellent "Fox Fodder" for supporting the Republicans when they say, “Aha, the ACA is bad for the US economy”.  They will just ignore all the good parts in the latest CBO report.

It’s unfortunate that the White House has now been unintentionally hit in a negative way by the one nonpartisan entity that they have counted on for justifying the new health care law.

The good news is that the ACA is the law of the land, not just a bill.  But it may now give the GOP what they need to keep a grip on the House and to potentially re-take the Senate.

So, as they say, "the hits just keep on coming".

Copyright G.Ater  2014