On Monday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer explained how President Barack Obama was able to employ a “bait and switch” tactic to get his 2010 health care law passed under the guise of being “deficit neutral.”
“The entire enterprise was a gigantic bait and switch,” Krauthammer said. “The administration tried every gimmick in the book so that the president could say Obamacare won’t cost the Treasury a dime. He said it again and again. And anybody over the age of nine is going to understand if you are going to give health insurance to 30 million new Americans, of course it’s going to increase the cost. It’s a law of nature. But they pretended with all the gimmicks and all the postponements and suspensions are now the parts of the bill that are either going to raise revenue or control cost. The employer mandate was a way to get the fines or the insurance provided by the employer.”
However, late last week the Obama administration announced it was postponing the law’s mandate for employers to provide insurance. The White House also announced today it was relaxing the law’s fraud prevention measures. According to Krauthammer, that paves the way for fraud and abuse as well as something that will hook people on the benefits of the law, making it easier to implement fully.
“So that’s out of the way. It’s going to increase the cost. Well, it’s postponed now. What was a way to know if somebody is cheating in getting a subsidy in the exchange is out the window. It’s going to lead to enormous amounts of abuse. And the idea of enrolling young people — there is no incentive if you are a 20-year-old to spend a fortune on a plan with all kinds of bells and whistles when you pay a fine and it is cost effective. So what we’re going to end up with is a bill that is going to be implemented because they are going to hook people on the exchanges and the subsidies with all the fraud and abuse. And once people are getting that, we’re going to have to raise taxes hugely as a way to cover it as it is done in Canada and Britain.”
