The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : CBO Says It Doesn't Have Enough Details to Score Obama HC Proposal

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The Spectacle Blog

CBO Says It Doesn't Have Enough Details to Score Obama HC Proposal

By Philip Klein on 2.22.10 @ 5:27PM

The Congressional Budget Office on Monday said that it did not have enough details to provide a cost estimate of President Obama's health care proposal.

Earlier this afternoon, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote on the office's blog:

This morning the Obama Administration released a description of its health care proposal, and CBO has already received several requests to provide a cost estimate for that proposal. We had not previously received the proposal, and we have just begun the process of reviewing it-a process that will take some time, given the complexity of the issues involved. Although the proposal reflects many elements that were included in the health care bills passed by the House and the Senate last year, it modifies many of those elements and also includes new ones. Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions. Therefore, CBO cannot provide a cost estimate for the proposal without additional detail, and, even if such detail were provided, analyzing the proposal would be a time-consuming process that could not be completed this week.

Earlier today, I explained why the proposal would be significantly more expensive than the Senate bill. The Hill reports that, "The enhanced tax credits and Medicaid spending would total about $75 billion over 10 years."

View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Siegfried X| 2.23.10 @ 7:24AM

Double standard. This is the same thing Obama criticized the House Republican proposal about.

Tenn Slim| 2.23.10 @ 9:02AM

Opine
I went out to the White House Gov PR post. NO one could make any economic sense out of the information. Clearly a PR post, designed to obscure hard fiscal facts.
end
Semper FI

Stan Redmond| 2.23.10 @ 11:08AM

Shame on all you evyil greedy republicans and conservatives. How can you put a price on the healthcare of our children, women, minorities, and the uninsured? Any amount of government spending that insures all citizens legal and otherwise, is a small price to pay to guarentee fairness.

Blech. It makes me ill thinking like a liberal even in sarcasm.

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