Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed President Obama’s health care law, vowing to continue efforts to repeal portions of the controversial measure.
Mr. McConnell’s latest attack on the health care law comes as the U.S. government spending for Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare programs will reportedly more than double over the next decade to $1.8 trillion, or 7.3 percent of the country’s total economic output, congressional researchers said on Tuesday.
In its annual budget and economic outlook, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that even under its most conservative projections, healthcare spending would rise by 8 percent a year from 2012 to 2022, mainly as a result of an aging U.S. population and rising treatment costs. It will also continue to be a key facotr of the U.S. budget deficit.
“Despite admitting this program is doomed to fail, the Obama administration refuses to take it off the books,” the Kentucky Republican said. “[T]he president is unwilling to follow through on that conclusion by his own administration.”
Mr. McConnell added that the Obama administration’s unwillingness to consider alternative paths towards increasing health care coverage was more based in politics than reality.
“The president is so determined to distract people from his own legislative record that he doesn’t even want to have a conversation about it,” said Mr. McConnell. “He’s so determined, so determined to convince people that the ongoing economic crisis is somebody else’s fault, that he’s acting as though the first three years of his presidency never even happened.”
The issue has become a key focus of the 2012 campaign. Wednesday’s report finds that spending is expected to dip this year to $847 billion, from $856 billion in 2011, due, in part, to extra federal money to assist states in paying for Medicaid. The healthcare program for the poor, Medicaid is jointly funded by federal and state governments.
Researchers warn that the longer term prospects for rising healthcare spending could have dire consequences for the U.S. deficit when combined with the cost of Social Security, if current revenue levels remain unchanged.
