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The burden of Obamacare

Obamacare would cost far more than the White House was claiming, we cautioned when the federal health insurance takeover was being debated. But President Barack Obama, taking time out from assuring Americans that if we liked our health insurance and our doctors we could keep them, labeled such warnings as falsehoods.

Perhaps the most expensive aspect of Obamacare for taxpayers has been expansion of the Medicaid program. Millions of people who formerly did not qualify for it have been added to Medicaid rolls.

Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported to Congress that expanding Medicaid cost $6,366 per new client last year. That is 49 percent more than had been claimed the project would cost. That translates to billions of dollars in additional spending. Do the math: If estimates that 10 million people have been added to Medicaid are correct, that is nearly $21 billion a year in taxpayer burdens the liberals claimed were mere figments of conservatives’ imaginations.

And though the federal government is paying for nearly all the additional costs linked to Medicaid expansion, states will have to pay hefty shares during coming years.

We’ve been taken for an expensive ride by the Obama administration, obviously. Bear in mind that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, Obamacare will be expanded.

In response to the revelation, the White House defended its estimates by saying, according to The Associated Press, that “estimating the cost of a new health program is not an exact science.”

Gosh, that ought to make us feel lots better.

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