CBO report is not necessarily bad news for Obamacare or employment

The law will cause Americans to work fewer hours, the office said, which is the equivalent of 2 million fewer jobs in 2017, according to Politico. It should be noted, however, that these are not job losses, per se, but the result of employees choosing to work fewer hours or changing career paths because they now have an alternative to keeping a job they hate or don't really need because it is the only way they can get affordable health insurance. In fact, total employment will increase over the coming decade, says the CBO, although the increase may be smaller than it would have been in the absence of the ACA. Of course, these nuances did not even have time to get their pants on before the partisan bickering was in full blast.

Predictably, this forecast gave new life to the job-killer rhetoric. "What matters politically is how the numbers look in attack ads. And in this election year, '2 million lost jobs' is a Republican ad-maker's dream," writes Politico.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich) wasted no time in slamming Obamacare: "This latest diagnosis from the nonpartisan CBO confirms what we have been saying all along—that the president's health law is bad medicine for jobs and the economy."

The White House, for its part, mixed up some lemonade. "At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in healthcare, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams," said Press Secretary Jay Carney. "The Republican plan to repeal the ACA would strip those hard-working Americans of that opportunity."

While the CBO report raises numerous substantive issues that can't easily be distilled into partisan soundbites but can buttress arguments on either side of the aisle, I do believe that untethering medical insurance from the workplace, even if progress is measured in baby steps, is to be encouraged. As the New York Times wrote in an op-ed published in its Feb. 4 edition: "The new law will free people, young and old, to pursue careers or retirement without having to worry about health coverage. Workers can seek positions they are most qualified for and will no longer need to feel locked into a job they don't like because they need insurance for themselves or their families. It is hard to view this as any kind of disaster."

— Norbert Sparrow