ObamaCare is Not an April Fool’s Joke

(Washington, D.C.) – The nation’s premier taxpayer watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), today cited a litany of comments and revelations in regard to President Obama’s healthcare bill that would normally be funny if they were not all true.  Taking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at her word, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it,” the details reveal a bevy of broken campaign promises and nonexistent revenue sources. 

For example, the bill includes a 10 percent tax on tanning services.  According to a March 31, 2010 article in The Hill, “The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimated that a 10 percent tax on tanning-bed services would raise $2.7 billion over the next decade, but the industry says there simply aren’t enough salons or customer traffic to generate that much revenue.”  The article further stated that the JCT would not divulge the economic models it used to predict the revenue. 

President Obama promised that his plan would not be costly and would be fully funded.  A March 29, 2010 FOX News op-ed by John Lott stated, “The $940 billion healthcare bill just passed by the House is between 45 and 88 percent more expensive than Obama promised during the campaign.” 

The President promised many times that individuals would be able to keep the healthcare plan they currently have.  But in the past week, several large U.S. companies announced massive write-offs to account for the loss of tax deductions used to keep retirees on the company prescription drug plan, and stated that they will reevaluate whether or not to drop the coverage and put retirees on Medicare Part D. 

“Unfortunately, the joke today is on the taxpayers, and they are not laughing as they continue to discover the sordid details of the healthcare bill,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “They fully appreciate the ruse that has been perpetrated.  The President and Congress continue to act like mindless cheerleaders for a monstrous bill that does not control costs or improve healthcare outcomes.  Proponents of the bill persist in living in a parallel universe where the solution to every problem is to borrow more and spend more.  Their plan generates more wasteful spending and more big government control, and the joke may be on them in November,” concluded Schatz.  

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.   

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