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Republican claims that Obamacare will turn Americans lazy a flat-out lie

Rep. Trey Gowdy not a fan of Obamacare.
Rep. Trey Gowdy not a fan of Obamacare.
Fox News

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R- SC) said on Fox News that Obamacare will result in people leaving the workforce to write poetry. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) suggested Obamacare will make people lazy. Both these Republicans are misinterpreting or more likely intentionally spinning last week's Obamacare report from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO found that people who only work additional hours for access to health insurance will scale back their hours as a result of Obamacare. The result would be a loss of work hours equivalent to about 2.3 million full-time jobs. Republicans, however, cited the report as evidence that Obamacare will result in job layoffs through disincentivisation. In other words, 2.3 million people will all stop working because they prefer being lazy, and by the way, those jobs they left - will magically disappear with them.

The fact is 2 + million people will for the first time be able to choose if they so desire not to work 60 hrs. a week because they need the health insurance the job offers. Is it “lazy” for someone to want to retire early, or go back to school, or start a business of their own - all without the terrifying prospects of losing health insurance coverage? Does Trey Gowdy want us to believe that after people leave their jobs because of early retirement or scaling back on hours, those jobs will not be refilled? Does he not understand that when millions of people start up new business, jobs will be created from new business hirings as well as new hires and to refill the jobs left.

Here is a newsflash for the Republicans and their media mouthpiece Fox News disseminating this nonsense. Every industrialized country work shorter work weeks and offer longer vacation leaves (paid). This allows them to spend more time and take longer vacations with their families. This system creates a larger spread of employment among the workforce and income among the population. In turn this owers unemployment and reduces social welfare and safety net programs. Most countries encourage earlier retirement. Which opens jobs up for younger workers and those coming out of school. These young people in turn start working, and paying taxes, as a productive member of society.

The only laziness is on the part of the Republicans who are too lazy to understand the facts. Facts like the working poor who are exhausted from the stress of constantly choosing which bill to pay on time, need affordable healthcare. The middle class who have been subsidizing an unfair tax code for corporations and the rich for years and whose median wage has hardly budged in decades need affordable healhcare.The only laziness is on the part of Republican politicians like Trey Gowdy and Roy Blunt. How much of the people’s “work” do they actually do when they show up everyday in DC given how much they’re paid and those generous benefits they receive? Are they creating jobs like they said they would when they were elected or wasting time and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to “get” Obama on some phony scandal.

Here's a tip Republicans. America now has the highest inequality of wealth in history. So instead of waging war on Obama, begin waging a war on poverty by supporting Obamacare, a jobs bill, raising the minimum wage, and investment in education - for starters.