House Dems Celebrate Two Years of ObamaCare Failure

Democrats Are Still Defending Their Government Healthcare Takeover that Will Increase Costs, Gut Medicare and Cause Families to Lose the Care They Have 

• Today marks two years since House Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress, and Democrats are celebrating the occasion by claiming that they will campaign on their government takeover of healthcare in 2012.
• Polls continue to show that a majority of Americans favor repealing ObamaCare, yet the Democrats continue to double down in defense of the law.
• Democrats are apparently prepared to campaign on the fact that ObamaCare is increasing costs, spiking premiums and causing families to lose the care they currently have.

Today marks two years since House Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress, and Democrats are celebrating the occasion by claiming that they will campaign on their government takeover of healthcare in 2012:

MARCH 21, 2010: DEMS RAM THROUGH OBAMACARE ON 219-212 VOTE: (Roll Call Vote 165, Clerk of the U.S. House, 3/21/2010) 

REP. XAVIER BECERRA (D-CA): OBAMACARE SUPPORTERS “SHOULD STAND BY” THEIR SUPPORT OF THE LAW: “Despite those numbers, Becerra said Democratic candidates shouldn’t shy away from supporting the law. … ‘Anyone who believes that the Affordable Care Act is good has a good chance of being elected to office and should stand by that.'” (Ed O’Keefe, “Democrats: The More Americans Learn, the More They Love Health Reform,” The Washington Post, 3/19/2012)

REP. DORIS MATSUI (D-CA): “THE MORE [AMERICANS] FIND OUT ABOUT IT, THEY MORE THEY LIKE IT”: “ ‘The more they find out about it, the more they like it,’ Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) insisted Monday, adding later that “Republicans are now trying to get rid of something, and we’re moving ahead, and people are beginning to feel the positive effects.” (Ed O’Keefe, “Democrats: The More Americans Learn, the More They Love Health Reform,” The Washington Post, 3/19/2012)

DEM WHIP STENY HOYER SAID “CITIZENS ARE COMING” TO “SEE THE BENEFITS” OF DEMS’ GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE TAKEOVER: “But I think there’s very, very strong support in the Democratic Party, and I believe that citizens are coming to that more and more as they see the benefits of that accruing to seniors in terms of their prescription-drug bill being reduced.”(Jessica Brady, “Democrats Willing to Tinker with Health Care Law,” Roll Call, 3/7/2012)

OBAMA SPOKESMAN CLAIMS WHITE HOUSE SPENT “MORE THAN TWO YEARS NOW IN AN EFFORT TO EDUCATE” AMERICANS “ABOUT THE BENEFITS” OF OBAMACARE: “The administration has been involved for more than two years now in an effort to educate the American public about thebenefits of the Affordable Care Act.”  (Press Gaggle by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest en route Richmond, VA, March 9, 2012)

DEMOCRATS “ACCEPTING—AND IN SOME CASES OPENLY EMBRACING” OBAMA: “But with the economy slowly crawling back to life, a shift in messaging at the White House and a Republican push on social issues, Democrats are accepting — and in some cases openly embracing — the inevitable yoking of their campaigns to Mr. Obama’s as election-year activities accelerate. On Capitol Hill, Democrats have begun to mention Mr. Obama more often and have gone out of their way to publicly back some of his proposals.” (Jennifer Steinhauer, “Democrats Warn to Obama as a Campaign Ally,” The New York Times, 3/8/2012)

THE ED RENDELL STRATEGY: FORMER PA. GOV TOLD DEMS TO “STAND AND DEFEND WHAT YOU’VE DONE” BECAUSE “YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY”: “Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who participated in a separate panel on messaging today, said he encouraged Members to ‘stand and defend what you’ve done, because you can’t run away from them.'” (Jessica Brady, “At Retreat, Democrats Urged to Defend Past Record,” Roll Call, 1/26/2012)

SPOILER ALERT: IT DIDN’T WORK SO WELL LAST TIME: “A top Democrat acknowledged Thursday that President Obama‘s health care bill hurt his party in 2010. And a new study suggests it cost the Democrats something pretty specific: their House majority…The study, by five professors from institutions across the country, looks at the health care bill alongside other contentious votes in the 111th Congress and determines that, more so than the stimulus or the cap-and-trade energy bill, it cost Democrats seats. In fact, they lost almost exactly the number of seats that decided the majority.” (Aaron Blake, “Study Shows Health Care Bill May Have Cost Democrats the House,” The Washington Post, 3/9/2012)

Polls continue to show that a majority of Americans favor repealing ObamaCare, yet the Democrats continue to double down in defense of the law:

ABC NEWS/WASHINGTON POST POLL: 55% FAVOR REPEALING ENTIRE HEALTHCARE LAW, ONLY 37% OPPOSE: “Adding that group to the rest, who already favored keeping or killing the law, produces a net result of 55 percent who favor throwing it out, 37 percent who would keep it – another equation in which the legislation comes up short in public support.” (Greg Holyk, “As Health Care Law’s Trial Approaches, Two-Thirds Say Ditch Individual Mandate,” ABC News, 3/19/2012)

TWO-THIRDS OF AMERICANS SAY THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD RULE THE MANDATE UNCONSTITUTIONAL: “Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate in the federal health care law or the law in its entirety, signaling the depth of public disagreement with that element of the Affordable Care Act.” (Greg Holyk, “As Health Care Law’s Trial Approaches, Two-Thirds Say Ditch Individual Mandate,” ABC News, 3/19/2012)

AP POLL: OBAMACARE “STILL UNPOPULAR”: “The poll found that 35 percent of Americans support the health care law overhaul, while 47 percent oppose it. That’s about the same split as when it passed. Then, 39 percent supported it and 50 percent opposed it.” (“Poll: Obama’s Health Overhaul Still Unpopular, But Fewer Expect Own Care to Worsen,” Associated Press, 3/8/2012)

USA TODAY POLL: 50% SAY GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE TAKEOVER WAS “A BAD THING,” ONLY 42% SAY A GOOD THING: (Susan Page, “Swing States Poll: Health Care Law Hurts Obama in 2012,” USA Today, 2/27/2012)

IN SWING STATES, 53% SAY HEALTHCARE LAW WAS “A BAD THING” AND ONLY 38% SUPPORT IT: (Susan Page, “Swing States Poll: Health Care Law Hurts Obama in 2012,” USA Today, 2/27/2012) 

MORE: 75% OF AMERICANS THINK INDIVIDUAL MANDATE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: (Susan Page, “Swing States Poll: Health Care Law Hurts Obama in 2012,” USA Today, 2/27/2012) 

ONLY THREE DEMOCRATS JOINED EFFORT TO REPEAL OBAMACARE: Final Vote: 245-189. (Roll Call 14, Clerk of the U.S. House, 1/19/2011)

Democrats are apparently prepared to campaign on the fact that ObamaCare is increasing costs, spiking premiums and causing families to lose the care they currently have:

$12,753 COST PER TAXPAYER OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS: The latest CBO cost projection for ObamaCare has the law’s price tag at $1.76 Trillion over the next ten years. That averages out to about for $12,753 every American taxpayer(about 138 million taxpayers in America with positive adjusted gross income).(Phillip Klein, “CBO: ObamaCare to Cost $1.76 Trillion Over 10 Years,” The Washington Examiner, 3/13/2012; David S. Logan, “Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data,” The Tax Foundation, 10/24/2011) 

POLITICO: “INCONVENIENT TRUTHS” ABOUT OBAMACARE: “SOME PEOPLE WON’T GET TO KEEP THE COVERAGE THEY HAVE”: (David Nather, “Health Care Reform: 4 Inconvenient Truths,” Politico, 3/16/2012) 

MORE: “COSTS AREN’T GOING TO GO DOWN”: (David Nather, “Health Care Reform: 4 Inconvenient Truths,” Politico, 3/16/2012) 

“IT’S JUST A GUESS THAT THE LAW CAN PAY FOR ITSELF”: (David Nather, “Health Care Reform: 4 Inconvenient Truths,” Politico, 3/16/2012) 

$682 INCREASE IN PER-PERSON HEALTHCARE COSTS FROM 2011 TO 2012:“Health care costs continue to grow — trend of 5.9% expected. Average total health care costs per employee are expected to reach $11,664 in 2012, up from $10,982 in 2011.” (“Performance in an Era of Uncertainty,” Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Healthcare, March 2012) 

BY A MARGIN OF 8 TO 1, EMPLOYERS EXPECT OBAMACARE TO INCREASE COSTS: “By a margin of 8 to 1, those who believe Health Care Reform will trigger a cost increase outnumber those who believe Health Care Reform will create savings. Yet the survey responses reflect that few employers have started to reframe employee expectations relative to Health Care Reform.”(“The Health Care Reform Survey: 2011-2012,” Willis, March 2012)

$500 BILLION IN MEDICARE CUTS: Democrats paid for their government healthcare takeover with $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. “It would cut an additional $60 billion from Medicare, bringing total cuts to the program to more than $500 billion over the next 10 years. And it would delay a tax on high-cost insurance polices [sic] until 2018, replacing the lost revenue by imposing the Medicare payroll tax on investment income for families earning more than $250,000 a year.” (Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery, With Senate ‘fixes’ bill, GOP sees last chance to change health-care reform,” The Washington Post, 3/24/2010)  

150,000 DOCTOR SHORTAGE: (Suzanne Sataline and Shirley S. Wang, “Medical Schools Can’t Keep Up,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/12/2010)

77% OF COMPANIES CONSIDERING DROPPING HEALTH COVERAGE FOR EMPLOYEES: Only 23% of companies are confident that they will offer health benefits in 10 years, down from 73% in 2007 and 57% in 2009. (“Performance in an Era of Uncertainty,” Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Healthcare, March 2012) 

30 PERCENT OF EMPLOYERS “DEFINITELY” PLAN TO DROP COVERAGE IN 2014: A major study from McKinsey showed that 30 percent of employers (and 28 percent of large employers) definitely plan to drop coverage for their employees starting in 2014. “Our survey found, however, that 45 to 50 percent of employers say they will definitely or probably pursue alternatives to [employer-sponsored insurance] in the years after 2014. Those alternatives include dropping coverage, offering it through a defined-contribution model, or in effect offering it only to certain employees. More than 30 percent of employers overall, and 28 percent of large ones, say they will definitely or probably drop coverage after 2014.” (John Tozzi, “Health Reform Won’t Dismantle Employer Coverage, Report Says,” Bloomberg Businessweek, 10/21/2011)