Obamacare Finds New Opponent In Warren Buffett

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Warren Buffett shows little ambition to become the President of the United States, but that doesn’t stop him sharing his opinion about what he would do if he were in the hot seat. The legendary investor told Money Morning that he would scrap the attempt at universal healthcare if he was at the controls.

obamacare

Buffett is not adverse to healthcare reform, nor is he adverse to universal healthcare of some kind. The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is going to be a negative factor for America’s economy over the long run, and the system will have to change when it finally becomes too much to bear. Buffett wants to see the system changed into a working one now, while the country still has a chance.

Obamacare and the economic tapework

Buffett told Money Morning that the current system in the United States is “really out of control.” When taking the current system and projecting it into the future, “we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else.” The current system is untenable according to Buffett, and his imagery is violent. “That kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body.”

“The American public is not behind this bill” according to Buffett, and that is another reason to start again. Buffett is not saying that Obamacare is raising costs, or doing anything to make the system worse. For him, the problem is the cost of healthcare, which is higher than it is in most of the world.

He thinks the appropriate way to reform healthcare in the United States would be to “Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage.” Buffett seems certain that lowering costs through legislative effort is the way to go, and it’s the way that would be fairest to the American people.

Obamacare incoming

Parts of Obamacare are already in place, but the biggest changes will begin to come about through the end of this year. Healthcare exchanges, the new tools for insurance buying, are supposed to come online at the start of October. The comments from Warren Buffett highlight the problems that are hounding Obamacare.

Even those who agree that all Americans should have access to health insurance sometimes disagree with the economics of the plan. Buffett is clearly a dissenter in this case.

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