The AP reports that while President Obama allocates $634 billion of his budget for a “down payment” on his health care push, the actual cost of his vision for health care could be $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to estimates by several groups. However, even this estimate could be on the low side, because historically, analysts have tended to underestimate the growth of entitlement spending. When Medicare was signed in 1965, the hospital portion of the plan was expected to cost about $9 billion by 1990, but in reality it cost nearly $67 billion that year. Keep this in mind when Obama argues that the only way to restore fiscal responsibility is to enact his health care agenda.
