Romney’s Health Care Law Killed Jobs?
FactCheck.org
Posted on September 27, 2011
The Perry campaign has been pushing a questionable claim that the Massachusetts health care law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006, “killed 18,000 jobs.” But that number was churned out by an economic model used by a conservative think tank, and it’s unknown whether the figure is accurate.
At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said: “If Romneycare cost Massachusetts 18,000 jobs, just think what it would do to this country.” Campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan also has referred to the study in criticizing Romney, saying the law “killed 18,000 jobs,” including in statements made prior to last week’s debate in Florida. What’s the truth behind this talking-point-in-the-making? We interviewed several experts to find out.
That 18,000 number isn’t a hard count of laid-off or fired workers, as Perry’s claim may lead some voters to believe. Instead, it’s an estimate from a conservative think tank – The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University — that ran health care cost variables through its economic model and determined that the state had “created 18,313 fewer jobs in 2010 than it would have had [the state health care law] not been in place.”
We can’t say whether or not Massachusetts businesses really chose to create 18,000 fewer jobs – or any other number – because of the law, but here’s what we can say:
(More here.)
Posted on September 27, 2011
The Perry campaign has been pushing a questionable claim that the Massachusetts health care law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006, “killed 18,000 jobs.” But that number was churned out by an economic model used by a conservative think tank, and it’s unknown whether the figure is accurate.
At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said: “If Romneycare cost Massachusetts 18,000 jobs, just think what it would do to this country.” Campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan also has referred to the study in criticizing Romney, saying the law “killed 18,000 jobs,” including in statements made prior to last week’s debate in Florida. What’s the truth behind this talking-point-in-the-making? We interviewed several experts to find out.
That 18,000 number isn’t a hard count of laid-off or fired workers, as Perry’s claim may lead some voters to believe. Instead, it’s an estimate from a conservative think tank – The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University — that ran health care cost variables through its economic model and determined that the state had “created 18,313 fewer jobs in 2010 than it would have had [the state health care law] not been in place.”
We can’t say whether or not Massachusetts businesses really chose to create 18,000 fewer jobs – or any other number – because of the law, but here’s what we can say:
(More here.)
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