Obama Twists Economics and Rewrites the Law to Suit

President Obama has a peculiar approach to public policy. Listen to what the radical left wants, or political expediency requires, then make up the facts, twist economics and rewrite the law to suit.

Here are four examples:

1. Obamacare

When the president shaped the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the country needed to provide healthcare coverage for millions of uninsured and bring down costs, which are 50 percent higher than in Europe.

Economics tells us achieving those goals — dramatically increasing demand by extending coverage and lowering costs — conflict, unless the supply side is dramatically altered by radically changing delivery systems and how prices are set.

The Germans, Dutch and others with insurance-based payment systems have taken such radical approaches to drug and medical appliance pricing, while still rewarding innovation, but the ACA does not.

A principal architect of the law, economist Jonathan Gruber, has admitted the ACA paid scant attention to cost controls, even as the administration touted it would indeed lower costs. And the White House recruited the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to put over the ruse.

Now Medicare's actuaries project the nation's total healthcare costs will rocket the balance of this decade — witness the big insurance premium increases for 2015.

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