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RNC claims on Obamacare

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Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013 9:12 PM

The Republican National Committee claims that 8.2 million Americans can't find full-time jobs "partly due to ObamaCare." But that figure is the total number of part-time workers in the U.S. seeking full-time work.

There's no evidence from the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that the Affordable Care Act has had an influence on those seeking full-time work. The number working part-time for economic reasons has fluctuated, but in general, has been on a slow trajectory downward.

The RNC also claims 6 million retirees "will lose prescription drug coverage" under the health-care law. But 6 million aren't expected to go without drug coverage.

Instead, they are expected to lose employer-sponsored drug plans and join other Medicare Part D plans.

So while employer-subsidized plans are projected to decline by 6 million from 2010 to 2016, total Part D enrollment is expected to increase by 7.5 million. Government revenues are projected to increase by an estimated $3.1 billion under this change.

Republican National Committee: $3 trillion: projected federal health-care spending In 2023.

The RNC ignores Social Security, which is estimated to total a little more than $1.4 trillion in 2023, nearly half of the total spending for these mandatory programs. The gross cost of insurance coverage provisions in the health care law is expected to cost $250 billion in 2023.

RNC: $255: average monthly increase in family health care premiums under Obama(care) - $76: average individual premium increase under Obama(care).

The figures above are for total premiums, paid by both employer and worker combined. Experts told Factcheck the health-care law was responsible for a 1 percent to 3 percent increase in family premiums from 2010 to 2011; they went up a total of 9 percent, mainly because of higher medical costs. The increase due to the law was attributed to the elimination of preexisting condition exclusions for children, the requirement that dependents be covered on their parents' plan to age 26, free coverage of preventive care, and the increase in caps on annual coverage.

Insurance premiums are expected to continue to go up, as they have for years, with or without the Affordable Care Act.

The Deficit

Barack Obama said the deficit has fallen at the fastest rate in 60 years. You have to go back 63 years to the period between 1946 and 1949 to find a bigger four-year drop than what the country saw between 2009 and 2012.

While economists vary on how to best measure that decline, the president used an acceptable approach and his numbers are accurate.

There are no statistical tricks in play. Politifact experts warned against reading too much into Obama's claim.

While Obama did not spend much time one way or the other on the significance of the decline in the deficit, he didn't mention ongoing concerns over the national debt.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said on "Fox News Sunday" that the deficit is "growing." Annual federal deficits are not growing right now, and they are not projected to grow through 2015, a point at which the deficit will have shrunk by three-quarters since 2009.

By this standard, Cantor is wrong. However, unless policies are changed, deficits are projected to grow again in 2016 and beyond. Public debt is projected to grow from $11.3 trillion in fiscal 2012 to higher than $19 trillion in 2023.

As a percentage of GDP, the rise is more modest, from 72.6 percent of GDP in 2012 to 72.9 percent in 2023, according to CBO.

Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. www.factcheck.org, www.politifact.com.

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