More on the Rising Healthcare Costs: Either he's stupid, or a liar

Last week we reported that a newly released study by Kaiser Health projects that health care costs will double by 2020.  Further, Kaiser says that ObamaCare will drive costs higher than if the government had done nothing, which is completely contrary to claims made by the President and his Democrat lieutenants.

Yesterday, the editors at Investor's Business Daily weighed in on the findings of the same Kaiser study.  After reminding readers that the President repeatedly said ObamaCare would "bend the cost curve downward" instead of making matters worse, IBD asked the question, "So what did Obama know and when did he know it about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?"  That's the fancy title for ObamaCare.

The editor's went on:

"It's hard to believe he wasn't aware from the beginning that the law would increase costs.  If he didn't know it, then he's not intellectually fit to be president.  If he did know that costs would increase, yet continued to say the legislation would cut costs, he's morally unfit for the office he occupies." 

"Either way, he needs to be doing something else."

Translation: either he's stupid or he's a liar.

Today, as USA Today reports, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid jumped 10 percent in just the second quarter of this year to an annualized rate of $992 billion.  The two federal entitlements accounted for 57.5 percent of patient bills for hospital, doctors, drugs and other care in the recently completed calendar quarter, according to numbers released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).  Cost estimates for 2011 predict another $90 billion increase, pushing combined expenses for the two programs over a trillion dollars, or about 7 percent of the total economy.

The escalation in cost from just one year ago – 8.3 percent for Medicare and 12.3 percent for Medicaid – is alarming, but the future is an even bigger challenge.  BEA analysis predicts enrollment in Medicare will increase from 49 to 60 million people by 2018, and according to the Galen Institute as many as 25 million people will be added to Medicaid when ObamaCare is implemented in 2014.