While discussing the overdose death of Philip Seymour Hoffman and the resurgence of heroin use on the Hugh Hewitt show on Thursday, Feb.6, conservative pundit Mark Steyn said that Obamacare's projected effect on jobs will cause more heroin addiction. Citing the effect of free time on "underutilized people," Steyn said, "The devil makes work for idle hands and that's the explanation for heroin addiction."
After the Congressional Budget Office updated its budget forecast for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, saying that over 2 million people are projected to be able to work less due to less economic constraints from health insurance costs, conservatives erroneously interpreted this as a loss of jobs while simultaneously charging that the increase in free time could lead to people being lazy or unproductive.
Steyn expressed both of these interpretations on Hewitt's daily radio program.
"It's the reality of what the CBO report is talking about where there's two and a half million people and fewer jobs," Steyn said,"and all the New York Times and Washington Post and Obama spokesmen say, 'this is great, people will be free to explore their potential and liberated to do what they want to do.' In fact actually it's the opposite."
"If people don't have to milk the cow at five o'clock in the morning and they don't have to get up and put on a tie and go to the office in the morning then actually this kind of stuff [heroin use] is all that's left. Underutilized people. The devil makes work for idle hands and that's the explanation for heroin addiction."