Becket Adams:
It’s no secret that conservative author and commentator Charles Krauthammer is skeptical of the Affordable Care Act and its architects.
And it appears that the White House’s victory lap Tuesday over the millions of people it said have signed up for health insurance coverage under the law has only reinforced his distrust for Obamacare.
Indeed, after President Barack Obama hailed the 7.1 million people he said have signed up under his signature health care law and declaring that it is “here to stay,” Krauthammer ran through what he believes are the law’s many failings and the White House’s questionable sign-up data.
Here are Krauthammer’s two major takeaways from Obamacare’s big day this week:
1. Phony Numbers
Krauthammer doesn’t trust that 7.1 million people signed up for Obamacare. In fact, as he said on Fox News Tuesday, that “wonderfully precise” figure is most likely “phony.”
“These guys go six months without any idea what the numbers are, and all of a sudden it’s to a decimal point,” he said.
He said that we can’t be certain of the accuracy of the 7.1 million figure because the White House has yet to offer a breakdown of who has paid to enroll and how many of the 7 million were previously uninsured.
“If it turns out that the overwhelming majority of the so-called 7.1 were people who had health insurance, liked their health insurance, were renewing their health insurance, and got kicked off their health insurance, whose lives are disrupted, premiums are raised, deductibles are raised, and lost their doctors are now among the 7.1 … it’s a net negative,” Krauthammer said.
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2. Is It Worth It?
As the White House hailed its new and questionable data regarding Obamacare sign-ups, Krauthammer revisited one of his longstanding concerns about the health care law: Is it worth it?
“Look, on the issue of what would happen, what’s going to happen, but assuming, again, Republicans win control of the Senate, they should be picking through the wreckage of what’s left of Obamacare. For example, you cover people with preexisting conditions, young people up to 26,” he said Tuesday.
