A new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report has found that nationwide healthcare spending will rise under Obamacare. In 2014, the year Obamacare takes full effect (unless repealed), the growth rate in healthcare spending would be 8.3 percent. This rate is more than double the 3.9 percent in spending in 2010, the year Obamacare was passed. What’s more surprising, this report is by the very bureaucrats that Obama and the federal government employs.
The report predicts a “significant acceleration in the national health spending growth rate in 2014.” The three largest sectors (hospital services, physician and clinical services, and prescription drugs) will see the greatest increase in spending in 2014. Hospital spending alone is expected to be $8.6 billion higher than projected without Obamacare. Physician and clinical services will be $17.8 billion higher while prescription drugs will be $15.8 billion more than without the intrusive law.
For Medicaid, enrollment is expected to expand to 75.6 million, an increase of 20.3 percent, as eligibility is extended to persons under age 65 with incomes at or below the 138 percent federal poverty threshold.
Meanwhile, numerous employers are likely to stop offering employee health plans, moving thousands into health exchanges, onto Medicaid plans, or left to fend for themselves. Sadly, the report concludes by estimating an increase in federal, state, and local governments’ share of total healthcare spending to a near 50 percent by 2020.
These striking figures reveal the need to repeal the overly government intrusive Obamacare. The NC legislature signed an amicus brief in favor of the plaintiffs in the Florida lawsuit but have yet to pass any legislation defending the rights of individuals to make their own decisions about healthcare insurance and service decisions. Will the amicus brief be enough to ultimately persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare? Should North Carolina pass its own legislation rejecting the individual mandate requirement or actively join a lawsuit to ensure the individual rights of North Carolinians are upheld?
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