SAN DIEGO – Some say it's time for the benefits industry to accept Obamacare — passed by Congress, signed by President Obama, upheld by the Supreme Court — as law.
Rick Santorum is not one of those people.
"I read this morning that someone here was saying, 'Give up on Obamacare, you can't do anything to repeal it,'" said Santorum, a keynote speaker at the Benefits Selling Expo Tuesday. "Baloney. Since when do we say, 'Well, it's going to happen, might as well give up'?"
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and a GOP presidential candidate in the 2012 election, pointed to Obamacare as a transformative event for the country. The law will fundamentally change Americans' relationship with their government, he said, and not for the better.
"People are going to now rely on the government in some way for their health insurance," he said. "And once government has its hand on you, it's not a matter of you being dependent. It's a matter of the government having control over you."
And despite the government intervention, Obamacare will do little to actually improve health care and its costs, Santorum predicted. Giving everyone an insurance card doesn't mean they'll be able to afford all the care they need — or, given the nation's looming primary care doctor shortage, even find it.
"There's something about an insurance card that makes people feel comfortable, whether it means you can get care or not," he said.
