The Truth about Health Care and Jobs
The Administration is out with a fact sheet attempting to claim that health care “reform” will create jobs – which contains several facts that need correcting. The paper starts out with the premise that since job growth has marginally improved since the bill was signed into law in March, this change is due to the health care overhaul. Correlation is of course not causation, and it’s hard to argue that the minor changes that have been implemented thus far would have a major impact on the economy. (Does anyone think the Fed pumping $600,000,000,000 of money into the economy might have something to do with the jobs numbers?) Moreover, the Administration’s own data admit that the economy is not generating the approximately 150,000 jobs needed to keep up with population growth every month – a vivid illustration of the Administration’s failed “stimulus” policies.
Second, the paper ignores a central assumption made by the Congressional Budget Office, that the economy will lose an estimated 750,000 jobs because the perverse incentives included in the health care law will discourage individuals from working. The CBO found that the law “will encourage some people to work fewer hours or to withdraw from the labor market,” and that “on net, [the law] will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy. Speaker Pelosi herself admitted the law will discourage work, when she claimed the measure will allow people to “leave your work” and go “be creative and be a musician or whatever.”
Third, the paper cites an assumption that “health reform will result in a reduction in private sector health care cost growth,” resulting in greater job creation. But an assumption does not an argument make. (I could also assume that I won’t have to finance my retirement because I’m going to win the lottery – but it would be a risky bet if I based my financial goals around that questionable assumption.) Moreover, the Administration’s own actuary found that the bill will RAISE costs by $310,800,000,000, so even that questionable assumption is on shaky ground.
Finally, the negative impacts of the health care overhaul are already being found within the health care sector. Politico reported just this morning about how cuts in commissions could cause health insurance brokers to go out of business – putting more Americans out of work, and leaving individuals and small businesses struggling to navigate the new bureaucracies created in the health care overhaul.
By any measure, it’s clear that the health care law will cost American taxpayers, and the American economy, very dearly.