Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/27/2015 09:13 -0400
Last quarter, when we showed what was “The Reason For The “Surge” In Q3 GDP”, some were shocked to learn that in the quarter in which US GDP posted a 5% surge, it was none other than Obamacare – a mandatory tax according to the Supreme Court which has the benefit of flowing through the US income statement – which contributed the bulk of this upside.
We are happy, and we use the term loosely, that history has just repeated itself, and now that the final number is available, what we wrote a month ago in “Here Is What Americans Spent Their “Gas Savings” On” has just been confirmed, and as the chart below shows, in the final revision of Q4 GDP, while virtually every other category of household spending was largely unchanged or revised lower, it was Healthcare, of which Obamacare was the biggest contributor on the margin, which saw an unprecedented surge in total spending, from $1.858 trillion to $1.871.9 trillion just between the second and final GDP revisions: a bump of $13.9 billion, without which Q3 GDP would have grown well below 2%!
Continue reading “It’s Official: Americans Spent All Their “Gas Savings” On Obamacare”
