Remember the promises made by government officials to promote Obamacare? “You can keep your doctor”; “The average family would save $1,500 per year,” etc.?
It was all a lie. After 12 years of Obamacare, hospital prices have increased more than three times faster than general inflation over the past two decades. As health costs have risen, insurance premiums have correspondingly soared, even as plan deductibles have risen dramatically. In 2020, health care spending was 19.7 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product, a 6.4 percentage point increase and 48 percent increase from the 13.3 percent of U.S. GDP expended on health care in 2000.
The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman quotes Paragon Health Institute’s Brian Blase testifying before House committees in February.
Health outcomes have recently stagnated despite the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) new spending and the significant expansion of Medicaid. American life expectancy was lower in 2019 than it was in 2013, before the ACA’s coverage and spending provisions took effect.
Freeman paused here for emphasis — “More spending and lower life expectancy.”
