Economist Predicts Rising Obamacare Costs Will Lead to Riots

Now that it is widely accepted by everyone except the president in denial, that Obamacare is an epic debacle, one which boosts GDP because it is fundamentally a tax that counts toward healthcare expenditures yet takes away from other discretionary spending leading to a downtrend in overall US consumption, most also have an opinion on how it unwinds. However, few are as gloomy as economist Chris Butler of Butler, Lanz and Wagler, who discussed the rising cost of health insurance plans rising next year under the Affordable Care Act, and said he expects riots as the populace begins to expresses outrage upon learning many will be priced out of health care options.

Butler told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT to expect more public demonstrations of anger as prices move upward.

Cited by CBS Philadelphia, Butler said that “right now, I think you do have to say that A, it’s failing and that B, I think next year, you’re going to have a bunch of people that don’t get the subsidies that make the premiums a little bit more affordable that are just going to riot because it’s just too expensive for most people if you don’t qualify for subsidies.”

Butler said he still objects to court rulings siding with the government requiring individuals to purchase insurance or pay a penalty. In that case, he will be even angrier to learn that according to Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber, the “solution” to prevent millions of Americans opting to pay penalties instead of be enrolled, is to hike the penalty even more.

“You can go back to the Supreme Court decision on this. I’m still shocked that we are being told that our constitution says that it is allowable to force to people to buy something. When I hear people talk about forcing them, not only to buy something, but to make the penalty stiffer if they don’t, I just get queasy.”

Butler told WPHT there could be simple solutions to lower costs and cites buying plans across state lines as an example.

“Do you know what New Jersey is anticipating, their’s is considerably less, as I recall, than Pennsylvania, yet we are not allowed to cross state borders to buy insurance. There are a lot of states, by the way, that have big cities on borders that are actually going to have huge increases but they border on a state that is quite reasonable in its growth in premium costs. We talked about that while all of this was being discussed back in 2010, some of the quick fixes you could make that would have a difference to our healthcare system, that was one of them, allow people to buy insurance across state lines to help equalize some of this stuff.”

Well, according to many the US is on the verge of full-blown rioting and even civil war on any given day: might as well throw in one more catalyst that will unleash chaos. After all, as Krugman said in March, “The important point about war from macroeconomic point of view is that it was a very large fiscal stimulus”