We all know health care prices have increased faster than the rate of inflation every year for more than 40 years, due to Medicare, Medicaid (and in the past couple years), the “Affordable Care Act.” Such government enactments increase demand without increasing supply, causing prices to rise. If markets were allowed to be free, health care prices would quickly come down, just as they have come down in other, non-government-controlled industries such as the computer industry.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now show that these government interventions are leading to a LOWER QUALITY OF LIFE for most Americans. The graph above, prepared by the folks at “Political Calculations,” a data-analysis think tank, show that Americans are spending less on entertainment than they did in the past–because Americans increasingly need these funds to pay for higher-cost health care.
The real level of average annual total consumer expenditures has not significantly changed in the last 30 years. See this link. And the increase in health insurance costs from 2009 onward as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act is in large part being paid for by Americans cutting back on their expenditures for other categories of consumer goods and services.
This direct evidence strongly indicates that Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is more popularly known, has directly led to a decline in the quality of life of American consumers since its passage, as American consumers are now much less able on average to consume other goods and services to the same extent they were prior to the passage of the law.
