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The Spectacle Blog
Responding to an inquiry from Rep. Paul Ryan, the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that when you remove certain accounting gimmicks from the Democrats' health care legislation, it actually increases the deficit.
Democrats have touted a CBO report that found that their health care bill would reduce the deficit by $138 billion from 2010 to 2019. But that number assumes that hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts would be used to pay for the new health care entitlement. In a letter to Ryan, the CBO estimates that if the Medicare cuts were used to help shore up the effectively bankrupt Medicare trust fund instead, then the Democrats health care bill would run $260 billion in deficits over the next decade.
In an earlier version of the House bill, Democrats included a measure to avoid scheduled cuts in doctors' payments under Medicare. They removed the measure when they couldn't get the numbers to add up, but they have continued to pass temporary delays of the cuts and have vowed to tackle the issue separately from the current health care bill. In the letter, CBO projects that if the so-called "doc fix" were added to the legislation, it would produce deficits of $59 billion from 2010 to 2019.
Earlier CBO estimates also asume that future lawmakers would actually enact some of the unpopular measures, such as the Medicare cuts and the "Cadillac tax." These are crucial to Democrats' claims that the bill will reduce deficits even more -- by $1.2 trillion -- in the second decade. But in the letter, the CBO says that without the changes, deficits would actually increase -- by a quarter of a percent of GDP, or $600 billion -- in the second decade.
Liberals have tried to portrat any criticism of the Democrats' deficit reduction claims as an attack on the integrity of the CBO itself. But as this letter demonstrates, this isn't about attacking the CBO. It's just simply acknowledging that CBO analysis can vary greatly based on the questions you ask them. And clearly, Democrats kept tweaking the language until they were able to get the CBO score they wanted.
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CJohnson| 3.19.10 @ 8:47PM
We kissed off owning our health care when we gave away the right to treat and cure ourselves back in early 1900's, and this is EXACTLY as warned; utterly helpless and ignorant, and at the Doctor's mercy.
We cannot deliver our children, we cannot set a broken bone or treat a simple wound, we cannot diagnose or cure or treat nor offer help to each other beyond first aid.
Nobama| 3.20.10 @ 12:31AM
We died a lot younger, too. A lot younger.
Wakefield Tolbert| 3.19.10 @ 8:55PM
Well, we were warned.
And warned some more.
Worse than the economics of all this, is the long term infantilization of the population that is now the plague of Europe. Socialized meds are the "tipping point" where government deems (speaking of that word lately) that it must intervene in life and culture in ways never before seen. To ration, to hold down costs.
At that point, we have a permanent Left-of-Center nation as far as government power is concerned, with little chance of retracting any of this wealth transfer and glop (indeed, name one major government programs that the Republicans have undone, even if they wouldn't be mocked for trying and the Dems demogogued the issue like they did with school lunch "cutbacks" and Graeme Frost).
Philip| 3.19.10 @ 10:12PM
Regarding the CBO scoring the Dems are crowing about, Table 2 shows $4B in penalties from uninsured individuals as income to the federal gummint. This means that 16,000 people per year will cut checks to the IRS for the maximum fine of $250,000. Very few people who have no insurance will have $250,000 to donate to the cause. Another way to look at this would be 160,000 people cutting checks for $25,000. Again, that doesn't sound feasible to me. Maybe if 1,600,000 paid a fine of $2,500, that would do it. Don't you just love the assumptions in this thing?
Eric CArtman| 3.20.10 @ 8:25PM
"CBO Confirms That Without Accounting Gimmicks, Obamacare Adds to Deficits"
All together now, "Duuuuuuhhhhhhhh!"
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