Isakson Reiterates Call to Repeal Health Care Law on Its Two-Year Anniversary

Statement

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today made the following statement on the two-year anniversary of President Obama's terribly flawed health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Isakson, who serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, voted against the health care bill in December 2009, and he has voted to repeal the law.

"On the two-year anniversary of President Obama's health care law, we continue to find more and more major flaws in the law that will impact the lives of millions of Americans.

"President Obama promised Americans that if you like your plan, you can keep it. Beginning in 2014, the health care law will require small business to provide health insurance to employees, or else pay a fine per employee. As a former small business owner, I know that small businesses will see this fine as significantly less expensive than providing health benefits. I predict many small businesses are going to get rid of their benefit plans and send their employees to the government exchange. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as many as 20 million Americans will lose their employer-sponsored health insurance plans as a result of the law. Even worse, the mandates in the law could cause as many as 800,000 Americans to become unemployed.

"In addition to decreasing patient choice, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable. The law itself will cost as much as $1.75 trillion, which is almost double than what President Obama initially claimed. On top of that, premiums are expected to go up by as much as $2,100 per family per year in the individual market as a result of the mandates in the law.

"Finally, I am gravely concerned with the effects this law is going to have on our seniors. When I saw that the president's law takes $500 billion out of the Medicare trust fund, which at the time was predicted to go broke in 2017, and moves it to the other side of the balance sheet to underwrite the cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I knew that we were in trouble. We're robbing Peter to pay Paul for a new program. It is robbing taxpayers of the money they've paid for a benefit that the law is going to diminish and move to fund beneficiaries who haven't paid a dime for it. This law is wrong for seniors. It's wrong for Medicare, and it's wrong for America.

"This terrible law is full of broken promises, and I will continue to work to repeal the law and replace it with solutions to contain the costs of health care and increase patient choice through competition in the private-sector."

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