GOP lawmaker says healthcare law nothing but costly 'broken promises'

By Pete Kasperowicz - 03/26/12 11:33 AM ET

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) said Monday afternoon that while the Supreme Court is just starting to assess the constitutionality of the 2010 healthcare law, most Americans have already rendered the verdict that the law is both costly and unconstitutional, and should be repealed.

"In 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested, 'we have to pass a bill so can find out what's in it,' " Thompson said on the House floor. "Two years since passage, American families have found out the hard way about increased taxes, looming regulations and a slew of broken promises from fictitious cost controls to limitations of consumer choice."

He said the Congressional Budget Office recently showed that President Obama was incorrect when he said Americans could keep their current health insurance plans if they liked them. CBO said as many as 5 million people per year could lose their employer-based coverage under the law from 2019 to 2022.

He also said there is increasing evidence that the law is causing health premiums to rise.

"This is a far cry from Barack Obama's 2008 proposition that his law would cut family premiums by $2,500 before the conclusion of his first term in office," Thompson said.

And he added that Obama incorrectly guessed that the law would not increase the deficit. "An honest accounting of the healthcare law finds that it will increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the first 10 years alone," Thompson said.

Thompson spoke on the same day the Supreme Court began three days of oral arguments in a case that several states have brought against the law. But as Thompson himself suggested, a decision is likely months away.

The first issue raised in today's hearings was whether it's too early to bring the case at all, given that many aspects of it have not yet been implemented. Tuesday's arguments are expected to center on the larger issue of whether the law's requirement that everyone buy a health insurance policy is constitutional.