Left Turns

It’s only Tuesday, but it’s already shaping up to be a tough week for the Obama administration.

Just after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported yesterday the 2012 budget deficit hit $1.17 trillion in August, major defense contractors confirmed they will send layoff notices to tens of thousands of workers this November as a result of the president’s own sequestration cuts. And now a newsurvey by the Kaiser Family Foundation provides further proof the administration’s “signature achievement,” ObamaCare, is failing to fulfill the president’s lofty promises.

According to Kaiser’s annual Employer Health Benefits Survey:

• Premiums continue to go up. President Obama repeatedly promised Americans his plan for reform would lower average family premiums by $2,500. Average annual premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance for families rose to $15,745, a 4 percent increase from 2011, while single coverage premiums increased by 3 percent increase.
  
  
• Costs are growing faster than wages. Health care costs are outpacing increases in inflation and workers’ wages.
  
  
• Family health care costs have nearly doubled. Since 2002, the average cost for family coverage has increased by 97 percent.
  
  
• More Americans are losing the coverage they have. 52 percent of workers have lost the coverage they enjoyed before ObamaCare was signed into law.

So far this week, the nation’s headlines have reported yet another trillion dollar deficit, pending notices of mass layoffs, and families struggling with higher health care costs. This isn’t what a country moving forward looks like.

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