This morning I read an article in the Los Angeles Times written by someone named Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is described as a professor of economics at MIT and a member of the "Scholars Strategy Network." In other words, Gruber is a member in good standing of the liberal academics of America. Gruber's topic today was an explanation as to why Obamacare is a "net gain" for the economy. That sounds good: an economics professor from an eminent university with a very good economics department telling us all why this law will help the economy. The reality is something quite different. Let me explain.
Gruber's biggest point is that repealing Obamacare would result in "throwing 25 million Americans off the rolls of the insured". I read that line three times to make sure it was not a typographical error. Was he kidding, I then wondered; was this a parody? No, this was a serious statement from our liberal academic.
Let's put this into proper context. Since Obamacare went into nearly full effect, there has been a net loss of health insurance coverage across America. Simply put, more people have lost coverage due to mandated cancellations of policies and inability to replace that coverage than have gained coverage due to Obamacare. That may change over the next year, but we have been warned to expect cancellation of an additional 90 million policies due to Obamacare, and that warning comes from the Obama administration itself. Right now, it seems likely that the final outcome of Obamacare will be, at best, a slight gain in coverage, although a net loss remains the most probable result of the law. Even when the law was being debated in Congress, the strongest advocates for it claimed that it would expand coverage by a net of about 12 million people, a result which we now know will be way beyond the actual result.
What the above figures mean is that a claim that repeal of Obamacare would throw 25 million Americans off the rolls of the insured is wildly inaccurate. Think about it. The law passes and there is a slight loss of coverage. It gets repealed and nearly 10% of all Americans lose coverage, or so the claim goes. Why would that be? The law does not provide a net increase in coverage, so why would repeal cost coverage so dearly? The answer is easy: it would not!
I assume that Gruber is not intentionally lying in his article, although the thought has crossed my mind. Instead, it seems to me that he must be repeating something which is obviously wrong because he never bothered to think about what he was writing. To be fair, that also means that the editors at the LA Times also did not bother to consider the obviously erroneous content of the article. Both professor Gruber and the Times should be truly embarrassed to have published this mess.
Gruber's biggest point is that repealing Obamacare would result in "throwing 25 million Americans off the rolls of the insured". I read that line three times to make sure it was not a typographical error. Was he kidding, I then wondered; was this a parody? No, this was a serious statement from our liberal academic.
Let's put this into proper context. Since Obamacare went into nearly full effect, there has been a net loss of health insurance coverage across America. Simply put, more people have lost coverage due to mandated cancellations of policies and inability to replace that coverage than have gained coverage due to Obamacare. That may change over the next year, but we have been warned to expect cancellation of an additional 90 million policies due to Obamacare, and that warning comes from the Obama administration itself. Right now, it seems likely that the final outcome of Obamacare will be, at best, a slight gain in coverage, although a net loss remains the most probable result of the law. Even when the law was being debated in Congress, the strongest advocates for it claimed that it would expand coverage by a net of about 12 million people, a result which we now know will be way beyond the actual result.
What the above figures mean is that a claim that repeal of Obamacare would throw 25 million Americans off the rolls of the insured is wildly inaccurate. Think about it. The law passes and there is a slight loss of coverage. It gets repealed and nearly 10% of all Americans lose coverage, or so the claim goes. Why would that be? The law does not provide a net increase in coverage, so why would repeal cost coverage so dearly? The answer is easy: it would not!
I assume that Gruber is not intentionally lying in his article, although the thought has crossed my mind. Instead, it seems to me that he must be repeating something which is obviously wrong because he never bothered to think about what he was writing. To be fair, that also means that the editors at the LA Times also did not bother to consider the obviously erroneous content of the article. Both professor Gruber and the Times should be truly embarrassed to have published this mess.
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