Letters: Debating Obamacare

Re “Stuck in a healthcare quagmire,” Opinion, March 5

Jonah Goldberg tells us that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is projected to add $6.2 trillion to our deficit over 75 years. For this “fact,” he cites a January study by the Government Accountability Office.

Goldberg either failed to understand or misled readers on the point that the GAO report was a hypothetical study on what would happen to the deficit if “the fall 2010 assumed cost-containment mechanisms specified in [Obamacare] were phased out over time.” There are no plans to remove the cost-containment mechanisms, and citing the $6.2-trillion projection as a fact when it was based on a “what if” scenario is misleading.

Unmentioned by Goldberg was an updated report by the Congressional Budget Office from July 2012, which considered what would happen if Obamacare were repealed. It found that the deficit would increase.

Rich Brock

Laguna Niguel

Goldberg would have a better chance of accomplishing something from a discussion “about how we got stuck in the Obamacare quagmire” if that discussion took place between two sides: one for it, and another side that is not marooned inside a bubble that includes no knowledge that most of the civilized world has universal healthcare, and why.

Benni Korzen

Los Angeles

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