Hatch: ObamaCare Continues to be a Budget-Buster for American Families

Utah Senator Says New Independent Analysis, “…exposes ObamaCare for what it truly is: a budget-buster for American families who will face significantly higher costs due to the law’s onerous mandates.”

SALT LAKE CITY – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today said a new independent analysis further exposes skyrocketing health care costs for American families.
According to a study by the Society of Actuaries, Americans in the individual market could see their costs rise by 32 percent per month. To put this in perspective – that is 16 TIMES the current annual rate of inflation, which stands at two percent per year.  In addition, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just yesterday, confirmed that Americans could see premiums rise due to the regulations included in the President’s health law saying, “…there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market.”

“This independent analysis exposes ObamaCare for what it truly is: a budget-buster for American families who will face significantly higher costs due to the law’s onerous mandates,” said Hatch. “This study is another stark reminder of the utter failure of this law to fix the fundamental problems of health care costs. Instead of actually solving the problem of higher costs – this Administration is simply throwing more hard-earned taxpayer dollars at it. No wonder they want to keep raising taxes to fuel their reckless spending habits. This approach failed in their stimulus and it will fail again under the health law.”

Hatch has consistently warned of the new trillion-dollar premium subsidy entitlement program which will provide taxpayer-funded subsidies to a family of four making more than $90,000 per year.

Both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have highlighted the soaring costs of the health law’s premium subsidies:  

• The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found that premium subsidies in PPACA will become the second largest health care tax expenditure by 2017, surpassing the exclusion for Medicare benefits and following the exclusion for employees that receive health insurance from their employer.  The premium subsidies will also become the fifth largest overall tax expenditure.
• The Congressional Budget Office said the premium tax credit subsidies will become the largest refundable tax credit on the books by 2023, costing $169 billion a year – hitting $1.2 trillion between 2013 and 2023.  

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