The report by the Congressional Budget Office indicating Obamacare provided a disincentive to work showed the healthcare law was "still a red hot mess," talk show host Joe Scarborough said Thursday.
"It's still a red hot mess," Scarborough said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Let's not pretend that God chiseled it out on tablets and gave it to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and it was the perfect plan that came down."
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A CBO report issued Tuesday predicted Obamacare would result in losses of as many as 2.5 million workers by 2017. The report suggested people could choose not to work because of subsidies provided through the healthcare law.
Obamacare created a "disincentive for people to work," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a hearing Wednesday
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Democrats argued Obamacare ended "job lock," and offered people more options for working since people aren't locked into healthcare plans because of their job.
Scarborough suggested President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "still don't understand the healthcare plan they passed in 2009." He questioned why it had to be an "either/or" proposition between work and healthcare.
The disincentive to work was not just a headline, it was the "heart of the story," Scarborough maintained. He said it pointed to the problem conservatives had with the welfare system, because "the less (people) worked, the more government benefits they would get."
"This study, which is devastating and goes to the heart of the problem that conservatives have against the welfare state, that programs are set up to create a disincentive to work. And, that's exactly what the CBO said in their report," he said.
It was "loopy" for the administration to make excuses for Obamacare, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, speaking on the "Morning Joe" panel Thursday.
"Why do we have to have this system where there's an either/or proposition for the consumer? That, if I want health care, then I don't work, or I can just opt out of working. I mean, if that's what the government is setting up as the model, then that's not a very smart model," Steele said.
Steele claimed there did not need to be a choice for consumers to decide between healthcare and work. He argued the "one-size-fits-all" approach through Obamacare "clearly has frayed ends."
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