How Much Has Obamacare Already Cost Arkansas?
With the election looming, the American Action Forum has released a fantastic new report that outlines the cost of implementing Obamacare — in terms of real dollars from taxpayers and in terms of employment lost as the result of new regulations.
As of October 9th, when the report was released, Obamacare had already imposed a total of $27.6 billion in new regulations. Five states will ultimately individually pay more than $1 billion in regulatory costs:
For perspective on the size of these numbers, $27.6 billion in new regulatory costs exceeds the GDP of Jamaica. The $24.4 billion of costs for the top ten most expensive ACA regulations is the equivalent of roughly one week of new deficit spending.
These state-by-state figures, although substantial, should be viewed as a floor, and not a ceiling for regulatory costs.
As for Arkansas, the “Affordable” Care Act has already cost Arkansas $249 million in regulations and over 200 jobs in lost employment (lost employment is defined as the total number of employees that will now have their jobs entirely devoted to keeping up with the red tape in the health care monstrosity).
And as the study notes, this is the minimum cost (the floor, not the ceiling) that Arkansas will bear.
