Since the beginning of the Obamacare roll-out in 2014, the equivalent of 800,000 full-time jobs have been lost and $250 billion has been subtracted from the national GDP, a new study from the Manhattan Institute finds.
Casey Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the conductor of the study, found that the roll-out of Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions has been followed by a sharp decline in GDP and job growth. These new findings cast a new light on Obama’s recent assertions that the U.S. has seen job growth in the wake of the ACA. While it is technically true that there has been growth, the study found that the ACA has hurt growth in work hours per person.
“If, instead, jobs had been able to grow at even half the 2014 pace, there would have been 800,000 more full-time-equivalent positions by now,” Mulligan wrote.
According to the study, the total loss of GDP is expected to exceed $1.2 trillion by 2020. In addition, the national rate of job growth has dropped from 2 percent to .5 percent following the implementation of penalties for employers who don’t provide health-care coverage to employees.
“The incentive changes embedded in the ACA, based on past incentive changes, are expected to ultimately reduce employment by 3 percent and GDP by 2 percent. That would be about 4 million jobs and more than $300 billion per year,” Mulligan said.
The study’s release comes just days after last week’s announcement of the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan,” the Republican alternative to Obamacare, which Republicans presented as a “free-market” approach to healthcare.
According to Majority Whip Steve Scalise, this is not the first time Obama’s statements regarding the ACA have been called into question. During the announcement for the Republican’s plan at the American Enterprise Institute, he argued that Obama’s “If you like what you have you can keep it” mantra was a “lie,” and that nearly 5 million Americans lost healthcare coverage they liked.
“Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight,” Speaker Paul Ryan said at the same event. “It is our duty to offer a better way.”