Despite what the Obama Administration tells us, that the Affordable Care Act will save money, the Congressional Budget Office has determined that large increases in Medicare and Medicaid outlays as a result of ObamaCare will cause healthcare spending to skyrocket — surpassing discretionary spending by 2016. The Tax Foundation has called this a “truly unprecedented and scary” scenario.
The CNS report says that over the next decade Medicare spending will increase from $550 billion to $1.064 trillion, while Medicaid would more than double from $253 billion to $592 billion. And the new exchanges and subsidies created by the healthcare law will force mandatory healthcare expenditures to grow from $25 billion to $181 billion in 2022, the CBO projects.
As a result, the findings say healthcare entitlement spending is due to more than double, from $828 billion this year to $1.837 trillion in 2022. Well, we have Obama to thank for further debt. This means healthcare spending will overtake all discretionary spending in 2016 — Obama’s last year in office if reelected. Can we really afford 4 more years of this?
In addition to the health cost increases, defense and discretionary costs are scheduled to be cut in January 2013 because Congress failed to reach a budget deal last year, propelling healthcare costs ahead of discretionary spending. By the year 2016, discretionary spending will be 6.2 percent of the GDP.
The Heritage Foundation has confirmed that total entitlement spending has already surpassed defense spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. The foundation observes that the cost of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security increased to an estimated 9.7 percent of GDP, while defense spending decreased to 4.5 percent. That marks a major deviation from 1965, when defense spending was 7.4 percent of GDP, and entitlements were a mere 2.5 percent.
Ever-increasing entitlement spending is putting pressure on key spending priorities, such as national defense, a core constitutional function of government. Defense spending has declined significantly over time, even when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are included, as spending on the three major entitlements — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — has more than tripled.
Taxpayers will be feeling the effects of increased healthcare costs in 2013. Then adding to the cost is the Obamacare Medical Device Manufacturing Tax of 2.3 percent on medical device makers will increase the cost of medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, and stents.
Then the High Medical Bills Tax kicks in:
This onerous tax provision will hit Americans facing the highest out-of-pocket medical bills. Currently, Americans are allowed to deduct medical expenses on their 1040 form to the extent the costs exceed 7.5 percent of one’s adjusted gross income.
The new ObamaCare provision will raise that threshold to 10 percent, subjecting patients to a higher tax bill. This tax will hit pre-retirement seniors the hardest. Over the next ten years, affected Americans will pony up a minimum total of $15 billion in taxes thanks to this provision. New American
And furthermore Obama care places an annual $2500 cap on Flexible Spending Accounts, which currently have no federal limit and are used to purchase a number of different things, from braces to contact lenses. Those who will be most impacted by the cap are families with special-needs children, as such families have been using FSA funds to pay for special-needs tuition.
ObamaCare reduces deductible medical expenses in 2013, which require people to pay more out-of-pocket expenses. And of course, there is the ObamaCare Medicare payroll tax increase that will cost taxpayers $86 billion over the next decade.
Then by 2013, doctors will be receiving even less in Medicare payments. So to enforce all these taxes from Obamacare, it will have to hire nearly 20,000 new IRS agents, paid for by the taxpayers. This means that President Obama will break yet another one of his campaign promises: not to impose tax increases on the middle class.
We can’t take 4 more years, vote him out of office. You see, everyone is hoodwinked over all the lies, thinking it won’t cost them anything, as most believe they qualify for Medicaid, but that is far from the truth, as qualification is based on income.
