>> The Obama Health Care bill has been scored by the CBO and it will decrease the deficits.
You're confused. That is not what CBO said. And the CBO scoring has several problems. If you are basing your support for the bill on this belief, please carefully read the following:
1. On December 20, Elmendorf released the first correction, which contained the following remarks:
.... The imprecision of these calculations reflects the even greater degree of uncertainty that attends to them, compared with CBO’s 10-year budget estimates. The expected reduction in deficits would represent a small share of the total deficits that would be likely to arise in that decade under current policies.
Based on this extrapolation, CBO expects that Medicare spending under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of roughly 6 percent during the next two decades—well below the roughly 8 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades (excluding the effect of establishing the Medicare prescription drug benefit). Adjusting for inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of roughly 2 percent during the next two decades—well below the roughly 4 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.
Entire article: cboblog.cbo.gov
2. On December 23, the second DEVASTATING correction was issued:
The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the PPACA would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits. To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.
You should read the entire article: cboblog.cbo.gov
3. The legislation AS IT NOW STANDS totally ignores the "doc-fix", which amounts to some $250 Billion which MUST BE and WILL BE passed, adding $250 Billion to the cost of the legislation. It was conveniently ignored in the legislation.
4. The legislation does not address the HUGE unfunded mandates passed on to states which will break them. This is why a few states (Nebraska, Vermont, Louisiana) had provisions for hundreds of millions inserted into them in exchange for their votes. This will be 10s of billions annual, structural deficit imposed on states which simply cannot be afforded. Not addressed for 47 states.
5. The CBO scoring relies on the federal government doing something it has never done before which is to reign in Medicare expenditures. There is no evidence, AT ALL, to suggest it can do this. We're talking about 100s of billions that is, as you are fond of saying, "not paid for". In effect, Harry Reid put in the legislation, "We know we CAN pay for it, we just don't know HOW we'll pay for it." CBO was required to accept this statement as though it were true.
6. CMS -- these are the people who actually in charge of health care finance -- has blasted the legislation. Here is a sugar-coated ABC version, but you can find links to the details in here if you are willing.
blogs.abcnews.com
The above clearly shows that the health care reform will increase costs by trillions of dollars over a period of a couple decades, and it could well be 10s of trillions after accounting for the effects of inflation. We are far better able to sustain our current system than we are to adopt this plan. |
