Michael Tanner on Obamacare's real costs

May 06, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Timothy Sandefur

From the Orange County Register:

Now the most recent report from the Congressional Budget Office warns that nearly 4 million Americans, nearly three-quarters of them middle-class workers, will be hit with fines for failing to meet the government's mandateto buy insurance. Those penalties will average nearly $1,000 per person in 2016.

All this, and the health care "reform" law is merely a month old.

Perhaps this is why nearly 56 percent of American voters now favor repealing the bill.

This episode provides a lesson, not just for health care reform, but more generally for the Obama administration's policies. When critics of the health care bill raised these concerns during the debate, they were accused of "fear-mongering." It was said that they were "opposed to reform," or were in the pockets of the insurance industry.