Sen. Orrin Hatch blasted Democrats on Friday for using "budget
gimmicks" to obscure the true cost of health care legislation,
which he said was well into the trillions of dollars.
As I
reported yesterday, Sen. Harry Reid plans to rush through a
bill next week that would prevent scheduled cuts to doctors
payment rates in Medicare, at a cost of $247 billion, without any
budgetary offsets.
"It’s a shell game,” Hatch said on a conference call.
By passing the bill separately, Democrats will try to claim that
their larger health care bill costs less than $1 trillion and is
deficit neutral. The so-called "doc fix" is aimed at preventing
physicians from leaving Medicare because the program isn't paying
them enough.
"It will be completely deficit financed," Hatch said. "And what’s
important is that it’s going to be a lot more than $250 billion,
because that’s in present worth."
When adjusted for expected inflation over the next 10 years, the
actual cost is likely to be twice that, Hatch projected.
“President Obama promised deficit-neutral health care reform and
the ‘doc fix’ is part of health care reform," he said. "So why is
it being done separately?”
Hatch, who serves on the Finance Committee, also noted that the
committee's bill delays most of its major provisions until 2014,
so that the 10-year cost (measured by the Congressional Budget
Office from 2010 to 2019) appears to be less. But, he said, the
true 10-year cost once all the provisions are in acted is $1.8
trillion.
