President Obamas Presidency

Obamacare is a huge topic being discussed between many politicians and regular people across the country. Obamacare is the major “accomplishment” of President Obamas Presidency. While democrats generally are in favor of Obamacare, the republicans are against it. The arguments against Obamacare are the effects on Medicaid, whether it is constitutional or not, and costs of running it. I personally side with the republicans against Obamacare. First thing is the negative effects on Medicaid. Medicaid is a healthcare program to help low-income families and individuals. It was started in the 1980’s and today it is one of the largest sources of healthcare funding in the United States. Medicaid is a joint program between the federal government and the states. Obamacare will expand Medicaid to cover half of the new insurance plans. According to Avik Roy, senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid, which will cost 795 billion dollars over ten years1. Our government is trillions of dollars in debt so how could we possibly afford billions more? I don’t think that our government needs to take on more debt than we already have. Our government should be cutting the budget instead of adding more things to spend money on. How is the government going to pay for this large increase in Medicaid costs? Higher taxes on the middle class of course.

Andrea Lafferty said, “Obamacare is a $1 trillion dollar tax hike on lower and middle class Americans3.” Middle class Americans already pay a lot of taxes and most don’t want to pay more. Obamacare is only making it harder on the middle class to make it. In an article from the Manhattan Institute examined different measurements of medical outcomes, the summary of what they found is “Medicaid patients were almost twice as likely to die as those with private insurance; their hospital stays were 42 percent longer and cost 26 percent more1.” This shows that not only will it cost more money it will also make peoples healthcare quality decline drastically. Second is the argument that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Most people who say that it is unconstitutional argue that the implementation of Obamacare is the reason it is unconstitutional. President Barak Obama has taken control of the implementation of universal healthcare, which is why it is called Obamacare. President Obama has used executive actions multiple times to get the parts of the law that he wants to be enacted.

Obamacare is the major “accomplishment” of the Obama Administration. Many of the Republicans in the House of Representatives have added to a lawsuit against the Obama Administration. According to Hans von Spakovsky, Obamacare has violated Article 1, Section 7, Clause 1 of the Constitution2. This is also known as the Origination Clause, which states, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.2” In other words, the individual mandate in Obamacare, which is called a penalty by the law, is in fact a tax. If the individual mandate is a tax then this would be unconstitutional because this part of the law was not originated in the House of Representatives. As stated in the article “How 40 Congressmen Are Challenging Obamacare”, the Supreme Court found that the individual mandate is a tax in order to fund the law. Our constitution clearly states that the only way a law can raise money is if it was originated in the House of Representatives. Third is the tax increase that will be placed on hardworking middle class Americans.

In Obamacare, if people refuse to purchase a form of acceptable health insurance then they will be subject to a “penalty” or a tax. This tax will cost the people who choose not to buy the healthcare hundreds of dollars. Another way that Obamacare will cost the middle class their hard earned money is the large part of the law will be placed into Medicaid. According to the article “U.S. Supreme Court Affirms the Largest Tax Hike in American History”, this large increase of people into Medicaid will cause an increase of 1 trillion dollars in added taxes3. These taxes will be placed on the hard working Americans in the middle class. In conclusion, I along with many Americans are against Obamacare. Obamacare is a huge discussion with most Americans and politicians alike. The reasons why is that Obamacare are the negative effects on Medicaid, the constitutionality, and the large tax increase being placed on middle class Americans.

Work Cited

1) Roy, Avik. “The Medicaid Mess: How Obamacare Makes It Worse.” Issue 2012 | The Medicaid Mess: How Obamacare Makes It Worse. Manhattan Institute, Mar. 2012. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. . 2) Spakovsky, Hans V. “How 40 Congressmen Are
Challenging Obamacare.” Daily Signal. The Heritage Foundation, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. . 3) “U.S. Supreme Court Affirms the Largest Tax Hike in American History.” Traditional Values Coalition. Traditional Values Coalation, 28 June 2012. Web. 25 Sept. 2014. .