Its a bird..it is a plane...it is the cost of obummercare

Employers whom the president peevishly ordered to "step up and start hiring" got more economic bad news yesterday when a study found that medical care will rise 8,5% next year, due in no small part to (surprise!) Obamacare.

The study cited three key causes adding to the cost increases. The first is the consolidation of more hospitals and physicians to meet government requirements... which reduces competition and thus raises prices. The second is the increasing dependence on private insurance companies to make up the difference to hospitals and doctors for the habitual underfunding of Medicare (which is slated for $500 billion in cuts under Obamacare) and Medicaid. And as the insurance companies' costs go up, so do the premiums charged to employers.

The third reason is a significant increase in recession-related "stress-induced illnesses," which oddly seem to have skyrocketed since Barack Obama took control of the economy.

But it would be unfair of Hope n' Change to focus only on the areas in which Obamacare is causing costs to go up. So in the interest of journalistic integrity, we need to note that another study has shown that many emergency rooms will not be charging more for their services in the future.

Unfortunately, it's because they're going out of business at a frightening rate... especially those emergency rooms which are most dependent on getting reimbursement from the government. And as a result, the remaining emergency rooms must serve more patients, causing longer waits and allowing less attention.

If employer healthcare costs continued to rise at 8.5% a year as they are expected to in 2012, it would be catastrophic for the job market - but experts say that won't happen.

When Obamacare takes full effect in 2014, it will be much worse.