President Obama needs to pay more attention to what his own government is reporting. Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute reports (via HotAir):
…health inflation per se is projected to be 2.8% this year — comparable to other labor-intensive service industries and also down from 3.2% in 2009 and 3% in 2008. Morevoer, “out-of-pocket spending is projected to have grown 2.1 percent in 2009, down from 2.8% in 2008.”
What about all the uninformed media fuss about health insurance companies supposedly “asking for” premium increases of “up to” 39%?
If President Obama really wanted to find out how quickly typical health insurance premiums have been increasing, he could have a staffer call the Bureau of Labor Statistics and ask for Table 3A of the “Consumer Price Index Detailed Report Tables Annual Averages 2009.” It turns out the consumer price index for health insurance premiums fell by 3.2% in 2009.
Obamacare would reverse this and cause an increase in premiums.
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