President Barack Obama recently declared that there are too many government regulations that stifle job growth in the United States. He said he wants federal agencies to weed out unproductive regulations to get America’s economy moving again.
While there are indeed far too many government rules that harm U.S. productivity, it is astonishing that the president who signed ObamaCare socialized medicine into law would now decide that the federal government is too intrusive.
ObamaCare – which the new Republican majority in the House voted on Wednesday to repeal — runs into the thousands of pages. It is so complicated that even then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared before it passed that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Even now, nearly a year after ObamaCare passed with only Democrat support, “what is in it” remains somewhat unclear. What is definitely “in it,” though, is a massive price tag. Also “in it” is broad, unprecedented federal control over medical care. And there is a mandate forcing virtually everybody to buy Washington-approved medical insurance – like it or not.
In a bill so lengthy, however, the full negative impact will be realized only some years down the road, as bureaucrats write thousands more pages of regulations to implement the law.