Via Money Morning:
When asked, “Are you in favor of scrapping [Obamacare] and going back to start over?”, famed investor Warren Buffett said on CNBC March 1, 2010, “I would be — if I were President Obama.”
Buffett insisted that without changes to America’s health system average citizens will suffer.
“We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control,” he added. “And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else.”
Three debate-ridden years later, millions of Americans still agree.
But now Obamacare is only weeks away from kicking off.
The government program, slated to begin in earnest October 1 when the exchanges go live, is one of the most hated bills in history.
Ask millions of Americans what they think about the new law, and chances are they’re ready to pop a jugular.
Critics heavily oppose the mandate requiring them to purchase health insurance. They’re also furious at all the new taxes, fees, and higher premiums they’ll be stuck paying, thanks to Obamacare.
Yet, while millions of Americans loathe every facet of The Affordable Care Act, as it’s officially titled, another group of Americans see it as a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to get rich: Investors.
According to most Wall Street experts, Obamacare will create unheard of fortunes for investors who tap into the right companies.
That’s because the U.S. will spend billions, even trillions of dollars implementing, regulating, and enforcing Obamacare.
Select companies and their investors are set to make a fortune in the next several months – and years – as the full Obamacare plan gets underway.
…read more…
This comes via Weekly Standard and it:
You know things are bad for President Obama when even Warren Buffett has soured on Obamacare and says that “we need something else.” Money Morning writes:
[….]
“Buffett insists that without changes to Obamacare average citizens will suffer.
“‘What we have now is untenable over time,’ said Buffett, an early supporter of President Obama. ‘That kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body.’
“Buffett does not believe that providing insurance for everyone is the first step to take in correcting our nation’s healthcare system.
“‘Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage,’ he said. ‘I would much rather see another plan that really attacks costs. And I think that’s what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill.'”
…read more…
And in another story, “Obamacare Hurts Michigan Businesses,”
Kalamazoo-based, medical-products maker Stryker Corp. says Obamacare’s 2.3 percent medical device tax will cost the company $100 million this year, reducing its research and development budget by over 20 percent — meaning a loss of 1,000 workers. The Fortune 500 company is just one of many Michigan employers being negatively impacted, making the state a witness to the national economic harm that Obamacare has wrought, even before state health exchanges mandated under the health care law open Oct. 1.
[….]
Stryker is concerned with the “medical device excise tax and its negative impact on jobs and innovation,” says CEO Kevin Lobo. At his 10 Subway sandwich shops, Michigan businessman Ken Adams has switched to hiring part-time workers to avoid Obamacare’s expensive, employer health mandate. He added 25 part-time workers this summer while reducing other employees’ hours. “We won’t start hiring full-time people,” Adams told The Wall Street Journal, even with the delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate until 2015. Cities like Dearborn have alarmed unions by also planning reduced employee hours. Meanwhile, the General Accountability Office has warned of the “potential for implementation challenges going forward” for Obamacare exchanges. Translation: They won’t be ready come October.
No wonder some of the Obama administration’s biggest allies are rebelling.
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