So much for RW's theory....
CBO Chief: Health Bills To Increase Federal Costs
By David Clarke and Edward Epstein, CQ Staff
The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday.
That is not a message likely to sit well with congressional Democrats or the Obama administration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., said Thursday she thinks lawmakers can find ways to wring more costs out of the health system as they continue work on their bills.
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, who has not yet released a bill, said his panel is acutely aware of the long-term cost concern. “Clearly our committee will do what it can,” he said. “We are very seriously concerned about that issue. We very much want to come up with a bill that bends the cost curve.”
But Baucus suggested the White House is making the task difficult with opposition to one cost-cutting approach Elmendorf cited — limiting or even ending the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits.
The Democrats and President Obama have cited two goals in their overhaul proposals — expanding coverage to the estimated 47 million Americans who currently lack it and bringing down long-term costs because the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending threatens to swamp the federal budget in coming years.
Under questioning from Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D., Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that the congressional proposals released so far do not meet that second test.
“In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs,” he said.
Elmendorf was not addressing the narrow question of whether the Democrats’ legislation would be budget-neutral over 10 years. Congressional Democrats and the White House have promised to offset the cost of health care legislation over that period.
But budget analysts and some members fear the legislation will not slow the growth of health care spending enough to prevent it from overwhelming the federal budget after that 10-year window.
Earlier this week, House leaders introduced their overhaul plan, which is being considered by three committees this week.
Elmendorf said that CBO has not completed its evaluation of the House plan, but what it has seen so far does not represent “the sort of fundamental change, the order of magnitude necessary to offset the direct increase in federal health costs from the insurance coverage proposals.” |
