Billionaire Warren Buffett has been a steady supporter of President Barack Obama. He backed him in the 2008 election and continues to do so.
But even the liberal Mr. Buffett cannot get on board with ObamaCare socialized medicine. It’s not that he opposes health reform. In fact, he declared on the CNBC cable network that medical spending “is like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.”
But he said he has seen nothing in the plans now before Congress that would really solve the cost problem, and that existing proposals should be scrapped in favor of better ones.
“Unfortunately, we came up with a bill that does not deal with the cost system much,” Mr. Buffett said on CNBC.
We can see why he would be reluctant to sign onto ObamaCare. Its “guesstimated” cost is roughly $1 trillion a year, and history proves that federal entitlements often wind up costing many times more than the original estimates. The estimated cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, for instance, went from around $400 billion to $700 billion in a matter of months! What possible reason is there to think ObamaCare would magically be the grand exception that stays within budget?
Liberals rejoiced when Mr. Buffett endorsed Mr. Obama in 2008, seeing it as proof that Mr. Obama had sound economic plans. Will they trust Mr. Buffett’s economic judgment now that he is distancing himself from the president?