Rep. Broun Wrongly Claims Health Care Reform Will "Kill Jobs"
While speaking on the House floor on March 4, 2010, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) falsely claimed the president's plan for health care reform would "kill jobs in America." Additionally, he repeated the debunked claim that President Obama's economic adviser Christina Romer said the bill would cost 5.5 million jobs. In reality, reduced health care costs resulting from the legislation's passage would create up to 4 million American jobs over the next ten years.
Rep. Broun Claims Health Care Reform "Is Destroying Jobs"
Rep. Paul Broun:
We're gonna be taking up a health care bill very soon, we don't know when yet. ObamaCare. ObamaCare, Madame Speaker, is gonna kill jobs in America. Let me say that again. ObamaCare is gonna kill jobs in America. In fact, the bill that the House voted on, the president's own senior economic adviser says it would kill five-and-a-half million jobs. [Broun Floor Speech, 3/4/10]
Health Care Reform Will Create Up To 4 Millions American Jobs In The Next Decade
Health Care Reform Will Create Up To 4 Million American Jobs In The Next Decade. According to the Center for American Progress, "Relative to baseline employment forecasts from the Employment Projections Program at the U.S. Department of Labor, we estimate that moderate medical savings from health care modernization as envisioned under the legislation now before Congress would lead to an average of 250,000 additional jobs created annually. Under the larger assumption about savings due to health care reform, 400,000 new jobs a year would be created on average." [Center for American Progress, New Jobs Through Better Health Care, January 2010]
Health Care Reform Would Create Over 13,300 Jobs In Rep. Broun's State of Georgia. According to the Center for American Progress, "the reduction in health insurance premiums caused by health care reform would create" but to 13,394 jobs in Rep. Paul Broun's state of Georgia.
[Center for American Progress, 2/24/10]
The President's "Senior Economic Adviser" Said No Such Thing
Republicans' Analysis "Problematic And Contrary To How Obama's Economic Adviser Said The Model Should Work." According to PolitiFact.com, "Obama's economic adviser - Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers - has never said that a tax in the health care bill would cost up to 5.5 million jobs. Republicans have used her 2007 research to develop a calculation for job losses for any type of tax increase. If you have a number for tax revenues generated, then this model will give you a number of jobs lost. But there are factors that make this type of analysis troublesome when it comes to the health care bill. Romer's 2007 research, for example, said that tax increases that fund spending for social programs tend to balance out, and economic growth stays on an even keel. Another problem is that the Republicans take tax increases that happen over 10 years and treat them as if they happen in one year, which inflates the numbers of jobs that might be lost. Finally, this particular Republican analysis includes more taxes than just the surtax of page 336; it also includes the employer mandates of page 313. We find this analysis to be problematic and contrary to how Obama's economic adviser said the model should work." [PolitiFact.com, 11/4/09]
