Nobody is a bigger fan of former President Barack Obama than Barack Obama. He’s the kind of guy who feels no shame about tooting his own horn. He does it a lot. Some will fire back that President Donald Trump does the same thing — and they’re right. Trump has no qualms about bringing up his successes and taking credit for his accomplishments. But that’s the difference between the two men. Trump actually racks up accomplishments. Obama racks up disasters.
Like Obamacare.
Yet Obama remains convinced that the Affordable Care Act — which didn’t make a d**n thing in health care even the slightest bit more affordable — somehow counts as a feather in his cap. He illustrated that delusion perfectly in the recent victory lap he took over the legislation he pushed and signed into law in 2010. Obama claimed the moment he signed the bill gave him “goosebumps.” You might need a barf bag to continue reading. It’s truly vomit-inducing self-aggrandizement.
At an event hosted by Walmart heiress Olivia Walton, Obama said, “That was a good day. And lo and behold, it’s still around.” Gee, thanks for the reminder. Americans know Obamacare still exists. The holes in our bank accounts prove it.
While the ACA still hangs around like a strange, unexplainable rash, we don’t know how much longer that will stay true. Obamacare sat at the center of the record-setting, Democrat-backed government shutdown that started in October and dragged on for what felt like an eternity. The subsidies Democrats slapped onto the ACA during the thick of the COVID pandemic are set to expire this month, years after the whole thing ended.
Republicans argue these subsidies aren’t financially sustainable, overflow with fraud, and slap teeny, tiny Band-Aids over gaping wounds that have caused massive spikes in premiums for millions of Americans. Democrats — who think the solution to every funding issue is printing more money, inflation be d***ed — want to extend the subsidies.
According to The Daily Wire, “Ryan Long, Senior Research Fellow at the Paragon Health Institute, told The Daily Wire last month that Obamacare is making health insurance more expensive. Obamacare plan premiums have climbed a whopping 169% since 2013, for example. The increase is far steeper than that of employer-sponsored insurance, because when prices rise, the government is paying most of the cost, so insurers can keep raising them without people feeling the impact, Long explained.”
The report added, “Additionally, the expansion of Obamacare subsidies has created zero-dollar insurance plans that have sparked widespread fraud and abuse, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.”
“There’s upwards of 6 million people who aren’t actually within that income category that are claiming credits as if they were in that income category,” Long said. “In certain states, there are three to four times as many people enrolled in 100 to 150% of poverty in these $0 plans than there are people actually in those income brackets.”
He then explained how the COVID credits resulted in an egregious amount of fraud, noting that the government currently pays between $27–$30 billion in fraudulent payments.
Yet Obama brushed off every bit of that reality during his conversation with Walton, proudly revealing he hasn’t watched cable news in 15 years. Meanwhile, President Trump and the GOP are working hard to either fix Obamacare or remove it entirely. Democrats remain utterly detached from reality — and from the American people.
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