Mr. President, About That $2,500 Premium Reduction…
The President’s 60 Minutes interview broadcast last night included a revealing exchange on health care. When asked by Steve Kroft, “Why do you think you deserve to be re-elected? What have you accomplished?” the President responded by saying his accomplishments included “putting in place a system in which we’re gonna start lowering health care costs.”
Never mind that the Medicare actuary has actually stated that health spending will RISE thanks to Obamacare, to the tune of at least $310,800,000,000. On the signature promise – lower premium costs – of his signature issue – health care – Obama has abandoned the middle class, not helped them. Candidate Obama repeatedly promised his health care plan would LOWER premiums by $2,500 per family, and do so within his first term. But the price of the average employer-sponsored plan ROSE by more than $2,200 per family since Obama was first elected in 2008, according to studies from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
If President Obama wishes to justify his re-election campaign on the grounds that he passed a bill lowering health care costs, he needs to live up to candidate Obama’s VERY explicit promises. And by this metric, Obama owes American families nearly $5,000 per year – that’s the difference between a $2,200 premium increase and a $2,500 promised premium reduction. But rather than giving American families a check they can take to the bank, Obamacare instead gave them a promissory note – a check which has come back marked “Insufficient Funds.”
In a separate interview with Steve Kroft last year, the President gave retrospective thoughts on the health care debate: “You know I think what I would have done is to be more scrupulous about sticking to some of the commitments I had made in how to get it done.” Unfortunately, struggling middle class families are paying every month for the President’s failure to deliver – and will continue to do so for years to come.