$2,500

For years Obama would throw out this number in his speeches. The average family would save, he would intone, $2,500 a year once the “Affordable” Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, was put into law.

Ever wonder how he arrived at this figure?

No, he didn’t just pluck it out of thin air. Nor did his speechwriters. No, there actually was a method used to come up with this round, memorable figure.

It seems that in 2007, a trio of Harvard economists wrote a paper stating that whatever the forerunner to O-Care was back then would save the US economy $200 billion a year. Not sure what the definition of “save” is here, me not being an economist, just one whose brain glazes over when hearing any term of the slightest possible economic orientation. Whatever the specifics, implementing this overhaul of the health care industry in the US would drop costs $200 billion.

Now take that figure and divide it by the number of people in the US, roughly, 320 million. That comes out to $645 per person. Since the “average” family has four members, multiply $645 by 4 and you come to – voila! – $2,500.

The scientific and logical precision of this utterly fascinates me.

Right now my health care insurance costs me $5,780 a year. That’s about $111 a week. Trust me, I am rubbing my hands in sweet anticipation of seeing that drop down $2,500 to a cool $63 a week, or $275 a month. Think that’ll happen?

Yeah. Me neither.