The Congressional Budget Office is out with its latest report on the Affordable Care Act, and here are a few bottom lines:
— The ACA is cheaper than it expected.
— It will “markedly increase” the number of Americans with health insurance.
— The risk-adjustment provisions, which Congressional Republicans want to overturn as a “bailout” of the insurance industry, will actually turn a profit to the U.S. Treasury.The CBO report also shows the federal deficit falling to $514 billion - the lowest since President Obama took office 5 years ago.
You're not likely to hear much about this on your news programs or newspapers, but what you will hear is Republican talking points regurgitated as misinformation =cough=ChuckTodd=cough= , because the right-wing wurlitzer has been doing a fantastic job of spinning the CBO's report into... Obamacare is a job-killer. While the report estimates that there will be a decline in the number of full time equivalent workers of about 2.5 million by 2024, what's behind that number is what Republicans and their handmaidens in the media are choosing to ignore:
Because of Obamacare, the national labor force could shrink by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday. While that may seem like a dire prediction, it would largely be the result of Americans having more choices for how they get health coverage -- not the result of businesses hiring less. [snip]
As the White House noted in a statement Tuesday, the people most likely to reduce their hours or stop working are those who have a job mainly to get affordable health coverage -- people like second wage earners in a household, potential entrepreneurs or workers close to retirement.
"Individuals will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods, like retiring on time rather than working into their elderly years or choosing to spend more time with their families," the statement reads.
This phenomenon of workers sticking in a gig just to get insurance is called “job lock,” and economists consider it a labor market inefficiency, Gould said.So keep that in mind in the coming days and weeks as you see this issue "reported" and distorted.
UPDATE: Here we go.
UPDATE II: Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a good reading of the phenomenon.
