Sorry, The Latest Anti-Obamacare Article To Go Viral Is Totally Wrong

[swag]

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/23/2666391/anti-obamacare-article/

By Igor Volsky on September 23, 2013 at 4:02 pm

An article published by Forbes claiming that Obamacare will increase health care costs by $7,450 for a typical family of four is spreading like wildfire across the internet, but causing eye rolls from economists across the country.

The estimate by author Chris Conover, an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, comes from a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report, which projects that national health care spending will increase once the uninsured begin enrolling in the law’s health care exchanges.

“By 2022, the ACA is projected to reduce the number of uninsured people by 30 million, add approximately 0.1 percentage-point to average annual health spending growth over the full projection period, and increase cumulative health spending by roughly $621 billion,” the report finds.

To translate that number to a “typical American family,” Conover took “the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected U.S. population to determine the added amount per person,” multiplied that result by four and voila: Obamacare will add $7,450 to average health spending for a family of four between 2014 and 2022!

One economist interviewed by ThinkProgress, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’ Paul Van de Water, described this calculation as one of the stupidest things he’s read in a long time and likened it to arguing that college costs will increase for a “typical” family if the federal government adopts policies that help lower-income Americans afford college educations. Yes, the nation will spend more on education if more students enroll in colleges and universities, but the “typical” student already attending college won’t; she or he will continuing paying tuition at more or less the same rate, while the newly-enrolled student will presumably benefit from some sort of subsidized tuition rate.

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[sharp_stick]

1. All you need to read to realize

that something is going to be bullshit is "scholar at the American Enterprise Institute".

I don't think that shithole has put out a factual article since they were begun as a way to separate money from idiotic republicans.

[GeorgeGist]

6. ADJUNCT scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Smells like an intern.

[Skittles]

2. has Forbes always been teabaggerish?

I've been really surprised lately - they don't even seem to try to hide their extreme rightwing slant

[dgibby]

3. Does it have anything to do with this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023717317

[GeorgeGist]

7. yes

[HuckleB]

4. Duh.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. So you're saying that that creepy guy poking my lady parts is not going to cost me more?

[Doctor_J]

8. White House needs to hit the airwaves and call them LIARS. Eye-rolling will do nothing

let's see if they have any fight in them