WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) announced the results of its online poll for the 2017 Porker of the Year. There were six worthy candidates who were guilty of promoting patently flawed policies, defending wasteful boondoggles, and pushing a big-spending agenda. After the votes were tallied, the dishonor went to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with 54 percent of the vote, a margin of 2-1 over the runner-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose foolish quest to impose a single-payer healthcare system on the United States earned him 21 percent.
Leader Pelosi was named February 2017 Porker of the Month for her long history of misinformation and hyperbole regarding Obamacare. During a CNN town hall on January 31, 2017, she made a startling claim about the Affordable Care Act: “It’s three purposes were to increase coverage, expand those who got healthcare; to improve benefits, and to lower costs, and it has succeeded in every way.”
However, all three aspects of that statement have been proven false.
A January 2017 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projection found that Obamacare covers less than half of the original estimate of 30 million.
Many Obamacare enrollees who received new private health insurance are finding that their high-deductible plans leave them just as vulnerable when they become ill. For example, David Reines, a 60 year-old former hardware salesman from Jefferson Township, New Jersey with chronic knee pain, told The New York Times on November 14, 2015, that, “The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor. We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”
The skyrocketing cost of Obamacare has caused insurers to either drastically increase premiums or withdraw from the marketplaces altogether, including Humana and Aetna in 2017. Premium increases in 2018 will make coverage “unaffordable,” by the law’s own definition, for 54 percent of families who bought their health insurance during the 2017 open enrollment period. The cost for the most popular Obamacare plans are set to rise by 34 percent in 2018, and 70 percent of U.S. counties only offer one or two health insurance choices.
CAGW President Tom Schatz said in a statement: “We would like to thank the taxpayers who voted for all of the ‘worthy’ candidates. Leader Pelosi relentlessly pushed falsehoods about Obamacare and that is why she is 2017 Porker of the Year.”
CAGW is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Year is a dubious honor given to a lawmaker, government official, or political candidate who has shown the most blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers throughout the year.
