January 13, 2012

Photo: Flickr/chickenlump

The slow economy ensured that growth in health care spending remained slow in 2010, according to a new report from the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

But Heritage’s Alyene Senger reports that the Obama administration is trying to take credit anyway:

Despite CMS’s and other health economists’ conclusion that the recession led to slow health spending growth, the Obama Administration published a blog stating that Obamacare is responsible, with no mention of the recession. Nancy-Ann DeParle, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff, wrote that “(These numbers) do show why the Affordable Care Act is so important. And we’re confident the law will continue to help hold down cost growth in the years ahead.”

In fact, the CMS report has some troubling news about health care spending:

[O]ne portion of health spending has substantially grown, and that’s the federal government’s share of the spending. According to the CMS report, the government’s percentage of spending has risen to 29 percent, an increase from 23 percent in 2007. The report explains that the increase is due to “Medicaid enrollment increasing rapidly and the federal government paying a higher share of Medicaid benefits through enhanced federal matching rates, as mandated by the Recovery Act.”

It’s clear Obamacare needs to be repealed. The Heritage Foundation has a plan, Saving the American Dream, that would replace Obamacare with a system based on free enterprise.

What do you think? It has been almost two years since Obamacare was enacted. Should it be repealed?