Obamacare: we seem to have spent 73 billion to save 5.7 billion. Progressive math at work!

   

Via The Independent Institute's The Beacon:

"According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), it looks like the number of people who bought subsidized private insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges is only 2.3 million: “Based on an estimated 10.3 million decrease in the total number of uninsured and an estimated 8 million increase in the number covered by Medicaid, ASPE estimates that hospital uncompensated care costs will be $5.7 billion lower in 2014 than they otherwise would have been.” The difference between 10.3 million and 8 million is only 2.3 million, and that is quite a comedown from HHS’s May estimate that 8.1 million people “selected” private coverage in exchanges.

The number of newly insured is important, because if we asked an Obamacare advocate for a one-sentence justification for Obamacare’s increased federal spending on Medicaid or tax credits for private health insurance, it would go something like this: “People with health insurance will get timely primary care, and that will relieve the pressure on hospitals’ emergency departments.” This feel-good statement has been rolled out countless of times by advocates of so-called universal coverage. Empirically, it falls flat: Emergency departments arejammed with patients, post-Obamacare.

However, it does benefit hospitals, which can monetize more of their ED care, which was previously uncompensated. Let’s accept that $5.7 billion estimated drop in uncompensated care costs. How much did it cost taxpayers to buy that reduction?

The answer comes from Bloomberg Government’s Peter Gosselin: We’ve spent $73 billion on Obamacare so far."

Is this sort of colossal waste any surprise?  By progressive logic, we can feel good because we insured a few million additional people, and that justifies any cost, even an extreme one like this.

A little more of this kind of financial genius, and we'll all be feeling great, but we'll be flat broke.  Wait, we already are!

Hat tip: Free North Carolina.