{"id":23986,"date":"2016-08-29T14:06:56","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T18:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=23986"},"modified":"2016-08-29T14:09:14","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T18:09:14","slug":"stiffed-middle-class-carrying-increasing-share-of-u-s-healthcare-burden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/23986\/stiffed-middle-class-carrying-increasing-share-of-u-s-healthcare-burden\/","title":{"rendered":"Stiffed:  Middle Class Carrying Increasing Share of U.S. Healthcare Burden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Barack Obama&#8217;s solemn assurances regarding ObamaCare, including &#8220;If you like your \u00a0doctor, you can keep your doctor,&#8221; have been exposed as fraudulent. \u00a0That&#8217;s a main reason why his main &#8220;legacy&#8221; has remained <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/other\/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html\" target=\"_blank\">terribly unpopular since its inception<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, another alarming factor has been added to the miserable litany: \u00a0Middle-class Americans have had the cost of it all <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/burden-of-health-care-costs-moves-to-the-middle-class-1472166246\" target=\"_blank\">increasingly heaped upon them<\/a>. \u00a0Since 2000, U.S. healthcare spending has jumped from 13.3% of our economy to 18.2% this year. \u00a0The news gets worse for the middle class:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The government has taken on a larger share in recent years as more people age into Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act [ObamaCare] expanded Medicaid and provided subsidies for low-income people buying insurance on state exchanges. \u00a0Middle-class households are finding more of their health-care costs are coming out of their own pockets. \u00a0<strong>David Cutler, a Harvard health-care economist, said this may be &#8216;a story of three Americas.&#8217; \u00a0One group, the rich, can afford health care easily. \u00a0The poor can access public assistance. \u00a0But for lower middle- to middle-income Americans, &#8216;the income struggles and the health-care struggles together are a really potent issue,&#8217; he said<\/strong>.&#8221; \u00a0(emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Overall, middle-income Americans&#8217; healthcare spending is 25% higher than what it was in 2007. \u00a0That means far less income to spend on other discretionary items, whether eating out, vacationing, clothing, automobiles, etc., and provides another clue as to what has made Obama&#8217;s tenure the <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/43-taxes-and-economy\/3215-obama-didnt-save-the-economy-he-subdued-it\" target=\"_blank\">worst stretch of economic growth<\/a> in recorded U.S. history.<\/p>\n<p>Heckuva job, Barack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barack Obama&#8217;s solemn assurances regarding ObamaCare, including &#8220;If you like your \u00a0doctor, you can keep your doctor,&#8221; have been exposed as fraudulent. \u00a0That&#8217;s a main reason why his main &#8220;legacy&#8221; has remained terribly unpopular since its inception. Now, another alarming factor has been added to the miserable litany: \u00a0Middle-class Americans have had the cost of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3074,861,1119,35],"class_list":["post-23986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-cost","tag-healthcare","tag-middle-class","tag-obamacare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23986"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23989,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23986\/revisions\/23989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}