Fiscal Hawk Obama Worried the National Debt Will Increase if ObamaCare Is Repealed

Did you know that the national debt could skyrocket if fiscally irresponsible Republicans decide to repeal ObamaCare?

President Barack Obama, sounding a bit like a member of the Tea Party on Twitter Monday, warned that the national debt could increase by $137 billion if his signature achievement is repealed.

If #Obamacare is repealed, the national debt could increase by $137 billion: http://t.co/7JTh4e8pZf

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2015

This marks the first time Obama has ever shown concern about the national debt — which has exploded under his stewardship:

The United States’ national debt has now passed the $18 trillion mark and is up by a whopping 70 percent since President Obama took office.

When Obama leaves office, the number will be near $20 trillion; the debt was $10.6 trillion when he arrived in the White House.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the debt will be at $26.5 trillion in 10 years.

Last Fall, Reason explained what is going on with the administration’s phony ObamaCare numbers:

Back in 2009, it was really important to President Obama that people understand he would not “sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future. Period.” He sold the plan as costing about $938 billion in its first decade of operation (2010 through 2019) but saving about $143 billion overall because of the various taxes and other revenue it raised. A 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report figured that Obamacare would shave $109 billion off the deficit between 2013 and 2022.

This past June, however, the CBO said it will no longer try to estimate the law’s effects on the deficit. There have been too many delays, postponements, modifications, you name it, to the original bill. “Isolating the incremental effects of those provisions on previously existing programs and revenues four years after enactment of the Affordable Care Act is not possible,” the CBO concluded.

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Official figures show that local, state, and federal governments will spend a record-high 46 percent of all health-care dollars this year and the percentage is expected to grow over the next decade, to 48 percent.

The New York Times reports that by 2023, all spending on health care will equal 19.3 percent of GDP, which is “two percentage points more than last year.” So whether it’s through taxes, increased premiums, or out-of-pocket costs, we’ll be paying more for health care in the coming years.

If that’s disappointing, it’s not exactly surprising. Government-run health-care programs have a track record of costing more than advertised.