Health Care BS

Yesterday, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that nearly half of the children born in the U.S. are brought forth, to use an old-fashioned term, by mothers who are not married. And this socially destructive trend has been accelerating for many years:

Researchers said a record 41 percent of births were to unmarried women in 2008. That’s up from 28 percent in 1990, according to the study, ‘The New Demography of American Motherhood.’

What does this have to do with Obamacare? Well, it’s no secret that the increasing trend toward unwed motherhood is largely driven by perverse incentives created by our masters inside the Beltway—-and health care “reform” continues that destructive pattern:

Thanks to Obamacare, some couples can save thousands on health insurance just by opting to cohabit rather than marry. How? The subsidy system erected in the complicated new health law manages to create a brand new ‘marriage penalty.’

That’s right. Obamacare exacerbates to the anti-family features of the tax code and various social welfare programs. Want an example? If two people making $43,000 each move in together and decline to get married, both qualify for subsidies. What happens if they get married?

If they marry, their combined earnings of $86,000 far exceed the $58,000-cut-off for aid to a couple.

Yep. They are penalized for getting married. And, if you are a journalist or some whitebread progressive, here’s a clue—-single motherhood is not “progress.” Children raised by single mothers are much more likely to wind up in prison than are those raised in two-parent families. And Poverty?

[Single mothers] head up 45 percent of all families living in poverty.

Such is the handiwork of our President and his congressional accomplices. In addition to raising health costs, restricting access to medical providers and reducing quality of care, their ”historic” boondoggle contributes to the shredding of the country’s social fabric.

That’s change alright. Hope? Not so much.