Congressional Budget Office

Melissa Melton ~ New Gov’t Report: Obamacare To Cost 2 Million Jobs By 2017

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TheDailySheeple  February 5 2014

In the latest in a string of lovely news regarding the so-called Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has released a brand new report concluding that 2 million jobs will be lost by 2017 because of the healthcare law.

The CBO said it wouldn’t be because of jobs lost per se, but lost hours adding up to the equivalent of that many jobs gone by then. The figure rises another half a million in lost jobs by 2024.

This estimate is three times larger than the CBO’s previous estimate back in 2010 after the bill was first introduced.

Worse — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to spin this new determination in a response by saying things like, “At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”

So Obamacare will afford people “the opportunity to pursue their dreams” of not being “trapped in a job”?

Okay, but don’t most people still have to pay their bills? The number of people out there working simply to pay for healthcare and nothing else has to be a very cozy group. It should go without saying that most people are also working to pay for a roof over their heads and buy luxuries such as food.

Right now, more people are dreaming of having a job, period.

Stories of big businesses slashing employee hours to below the 30-hour full-time employee designation in Obamacare came one after another last year, while still other smaller companies refused to hire a 50th full-time worker to avoid triggering the law’s requirement of offering employees health insurance or paying fines (even though paying this fine under the law is typically cheaper than offering said insurance).

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Matt Taibbi ~ Latest Health Care Flap Shows Media At Its Most Boring

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RollingStone  February 6 2014

matt_taibbi3There’s a reason why people hate politics in this country. Or, at least, a reason they hate reading about it: It’s boring.

It’s the same kind of boring that prevents all but the most desperate from getting off with bots in chat rooms. When you want to interact with a human being, and get a machine instead, it’s pretty much always a disappointment.

Yet this is the way our political media is delivered. Every new news item goes through a mechanized process, traveling through a flow chart designed to break down all information into one of just two types of product: meat for Republican readers, and meat for Democrat readers. Nobody else gets to eat. And even if you don’t mind one or the other, nobody can stand the same meal a million days in a row. It’s the numbing sameness and predictability that makes you crazy, as the latest flap over Obamacare proves once again.

Two days ago, the Congressional Budget Office released “The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market,” a dry and painful report that makes the twin obvious points that a) the economy has really sucked since 2007, and b) the long-term outlook for jobs in this country is less than thrilling.

It’s a depressing document, about the last thing in the world you’d voluntarily read on the toilet, but from the point of view of horse-race Hill politicos, it contained a bombshell passage. This is from a section about labor participation, i.e. the number of people willing to go to work:

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will tend to reduce participation, with the largest impact from new subsidies that reduce the cost of health insurance purchased through exchanges. Specifically, by providing subsidies that reduce the cost of health insurance purchased through exchanges. Specifically, by providing subsidies that decline with rising income (and increase with falling income) and by making some people financially better off, the ACA will create an incentive for some people to choose to work less.

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Big Pharma Made $711 Bln Overcharging Seniors And Disabled

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End The Lie April 10 2013

big pharmaThe 11 largest drug companies have made $711 billion in profits in just a decade, largely due to overcharging Medicare, which does not seek out competitive prices and uses taxpayer funds to support Big Pharma.

Since Medicare is prohibited from purchasing drugs based on their cost, its prescription drug program has been making large payouts to drug companies that have overcharged the program for years, according to an analysis by Health Care for America Now (HCAN).

“There is nothing wrong with a company making profits – that’s what their supposed to do. But the drug industry’s profits are excessive as a result of overcharging American consumers and taxpayers,” writes Ethan Rome, executive director of HCAN, for the Huffington Post. “We pay significantly more than any other country for the exact same drugs.”

Rome notes that per capita drug spending in the US is 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan, and nearly 300 percent greater than Denmark.

The 11 largest global prescription drug companies have skyrocketed since the Medicare Part D prescription drug program was launched in 2006. The government health program enables seniors and the disabled to buy taxpayer-subsidized coverage for many of the most widely disseminated medicines. But Medicare is prohibited from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies or seeking out more cost-effective drugs, thereby costing seniors, the disabled and American taxpayers billions of dollars more than some argue the drugs are worth.

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