Testimony on Fiscal Consequences of PPACA

Richard Foster, Chief Actuary, Center for Medicare and Medicaid.
1/26/11 Testimony before the House Committee on the Budget


McCLINTOCK: “True or false: The two principle promises that were made in support of Obamacare were one, that it would hold costs down. True or false?”

FOSTER: “I would say false, more so than true.”

McCLINTOCK: “The other promise… was the promise that if you like your plan, you can keep it. True or false?”

FOSTER: “Not true in all cases.”

A Tale of Two Emails on repeal of the PPACA

I recently received two emails. One is from the White House with the Orwellian title, "Protecting Your New Freedoms Under the Affordable Care Act." The other, "What Repeal Really Means" was from Chris Jacobs of the Republican Policy Committee.

Read both releases carefully.

Our President claims he can offer people the chance to be free from the demands of reality by making others pick up the tab.

But no one can be free from the requirements of reality---the necessity of creating the values you need to sustain your life. Freedom is not a metaphysical concept but a political one, one whose true meaning is to be free from the coercive acts of others.

If allowed to stand, the PPACA will extend the power of government, further depriving us of the freedom we need to sustain our lives: the freedom to use our own minds, set our our values and priorities, and to act on our own choices. The PPACA will extend the current erroneous legal precedent that government can rightfully dictate the contents of private contracts and exchanges, along with regulating items we produce for our own private use as "interstate commerce" (see Wickard v. Filburn.) In addition, the government will be allowed to dictate what we must and must not purchase, and with whom, and for what price.

The PPACA is one of the biggest intrusions into our economic freedom in recent years. No individual or business will be left unaffected--and few, if any, restrainsts will be left on the power of government over our economic lives. And since freedom is of a piece, loss of economic freedoms will eventually require the erosion of freedom in all other realms.

What does repeal of ObamaCare really mean? It means resurrecting the Rule of Law and reasserting the Constitution as a limit on government power, and the purpose of government as the protector of individual rights.

The main issue is not whether or not repeal will add to the deficit, or if repeal will save jobs.

The main issue is that repeal will restore essential freedoms and take a step in the right direction of limiting the intrusion of government into our private lives.

ObamaCare must go so we can live our lives in freedom.

A solution which destroys freedom, is no true solution at all.

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