Coulter predicts 'the end of America' if Romney's not around to repeal health reform

Republican opinion writer Ann Coulter said Monday night that a defeat for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would ensure "the end of America" because the Affordable Care Act wouldn't be repealed.

"I travel to [sic] America a lot," she said during a Monday appearance with Fox News host Sean Hannity. "Just this year I've spent time in seven of the 10 swing states, which is part of the reason I'm so confident I'll be back Wednesday night for the victory party. People are really suffering out there. People are unemployed, under employed and most of all, everyone sees Obamacare coming down the track. And that is really -- that's the end of America."

She added: "If we don't overturn that in the next few years, we become a pathetic western European country without the cobblestone streets, and most of all, without America out there to protect us."

Coulter added, correctly in fact, that the nation's spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and debt service are projected to overrun the budget relatively soon. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that spending on federal assistance will exceed government revenues by 2026 if Congress does not enact higher tax rates on the wealthy, reform the programs or both.

However, she failed to note that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that repealing the Affordable Care Act would add $210 billion to the deficit over the next decade. The CBO also says the law will actually reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion (PDF). Additionally, federal assistance in buying private health insurance is set to make health care vastly more affordable for all Americans once the mandate kicks in.

It's also important to note that unlike the single-payer health care systems built by European nations, even under health reform the U.S. still maintains a private insurance conglomerate that pays for care, which studies show to be far less cost effective than systems in countries like Britain, which Coulter apparently thinks of as "pathetic."

This video is from The Fox News Channel's "Hannity," aired Monday, November 5, 2012, as snipped by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters.

------

Image via Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons licensed.