More Bad News for Obamacare Supporters: Rising Premiums and Costs
In recent days, multiple news outlets have reported on stories in which groups of Americans who might be pre-disposed to support Obamacare have found reasons to oppose it. Yesterday the GW Hatchet reported that George Washington University students face a whopping 21 percent increase in premiums for the student health plan. And the medical director of the health service “said national health care reform was a ‘major driver’ in the cost for all student health care plans.” That Obamacare has raised premium costs for struggling college students by more than 20 percent – even though candidate Obama repeatedly promised that premiums would go DOWN by an average $2,500 per family – shows once again how the law is not meeting its promises, even for an age group that represents some of the President’s biggest supporters.
Similarly, a survey of medical students released earlier this week shows that, while most would-be doctors support Obamacare’s efforts, they don’t believe the law will work in containing costs. In the survey, four in five (80.1%) of the students expressed their support for Obamacare, far above the level of support among surveys of all Americans. (An additional 6.1% said they opposed the law “because it did not go far enough.”) Yet only 31.4% of the medical students surveyed believe the law will improve health care quality, and only 18.6% believe the law will contain skyrocketing health costs.
As a reminder, in June 2009 President Obama claimed that any health care legislation must control costs: “If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs.” However, fewer than one in five medical students – most of whom SUPPORT the law – believe it will live up to the President’s promise to control rising health care costs. (These students are joined by the Medicare actuary, who found that medical spending will go up by an additional $310,800,000,000 thanks to Obamacare.)
These two stories are linked and inter-related – Obamacare’s failure to contain costs directly led to the premium increases seen at George Washington and elsewhere. Just as important, both stories show how the legislation’s skyrocketing costs and premiums will only increase political opposition in the future.