From this Saturday's Bulls & Bears on Faux "news," regular guest Gary B. Smith tells host Brenda Buttner that Obamacare is nothing more than a giant shell game where we're moving money through the federal government and that any time we do that, it's going to cause damage to the economy.
One of the other guests pointed to Medicare as an example of why that's not true, which just ended with Smith and what sounded like his fellow wingnut Tracy Byrnes in the background chiming in as well, attacking Medicare. Sadly no one pointed out to him that you could say the exact same thing about every single portion of our economy where there are taxes involved and where our federal government spends money.
I wonder which other "big shell games" we'll never hear Gary B. Smith or anyone else on Fox "news" dare to complain about? The Department of Defense? Our military? Subsidies for oil companies? I guess it's only a "shell game" when it helps those living in poverty and the working class.
BUTTNER: Well Gary B. even if you aren't going to enroll in Obamacare, does this hurt the economy? Does this hurt you?
SMITH: It has to Brenda. Look, if we take a step back and look at what Obamacare is, it's basically a big shell game. I'm healthy and I can afford it. My premiums as we've talked any number of times about on this show, have gone up forty percent. My twenty five year old daughter who files on her own and makes nothing per year, she gets $176 a month credit, so she doesn't have to pay anything. So all we've done is move money from one entity to the other through the government.
Now when in the history of the United States has moving money through the government in a big shell game not hurt the economy? It's just... it's obvious. This is going to kill us like all the other cockamamie things this administration has done.
BUTTNER: Sacha, you don't think that it is going to hurt everybody. Why not?
BURNS: No I don't and if that were the case Gary B. then, you know, people wouldn't be so happy with Medicare, because it's the exact same...
SMITH: I'm not happy with Medicare! It's broke!
BURNS: You don't see any protests outside by seniors about Medicare.
SMITH: Yeah, because they're not paying anything! Everyone else, all the healthy people are paying into Medicare. We'll leave that one alone for now.
BURNS: We'll leave that one alone. So no, here's why, because it's a problem in some states, in about eight out of fifty, in two out of fifty cities, major cities in the U.S. there are problems with the price increases going up because insurers are dropping the lower priced plans. That's about competition.
The upside of that is that about twenty five percent more health insurers are getting in this year and it will stabilize itself out, so for the vast majority of the people involved in Obamacare, the prices are either, the premiums are either going down or the rate of increase is dramatically less.
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