CBO: Obamacare to cost $1.76 trillion over 10 yrs

[UltimateHoboW/Shotgun]

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/cbo-obamacare-cost-176-trillion-over-10-yrs/425831

President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO's standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama's pledge that the legislation would cost "around $900 billion over 10 years." When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.

Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn't overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we're likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.

UPDATE: I've done another post with additional details from the CBO report.


http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/293397/shock-obamacare-pricier-advertised-daniel-foster


When it was being debated, Democrats told you ACA would cost (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/293397/shock-obamacare-pricier-advertised-daniel-foster#) $940 billion over ten years, because they think you’re stupid. But now, with more years of fully-bloomed Obamacare inside the ten-year budget (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/293397/shock-obamacare-pricier-advertised-daniel-foster#) window, the CBO is out with new cost estimates. They ain’t pretty (http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/cbo-obamacare-cost-176-trillion-over-10-yrs/425831):
Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law’s core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That’s because we now have estimates for Obamacare’s first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn’t overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/293397/shock-obamacare-pricier-advertised-daniel-foster#) by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we’re likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.
That’s right, the true ten-year cost is going to be still higher.
To me, the question has never been whether Obamacare will fail (by failing to bend the cost curve, by incurring massive per-person costs for its coverage expansion, and by foisting things like IPAB on the public). Rather, the question has been whether it will fail quickly and spectacularly enough that the political will is toward repeal, and not expansion. If it fails slowly, we’re likely to see more of it, not less.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Teabaggers have been lying about this since Tuesday. Here's the truth: On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its 2012 estimate on the ten- year projected cost of the Affordable Care Act. Instantly, the anti-Obamacare crowd took to the airwaves and social media to proclaim that the numbers reveal the costs of the Affordable Care Act to be double what was promised when the law was passed. Wow. That’s some scary stuff. Good thing it is a complete and utter falsehood.


https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQBGOeFFiDgFUyr2&w=90&h=90&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fthumbnails%2Fblog_1068%2Fpt_10 68_6030_o.jpg%3Ft%3D1331828675 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/03/15/anti-obamacare-forces-introduce-their-latest-effort-to-mislead-the-public/?utm_source=alertsnewpost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120315)Anti-Obamacare Forces Introduce Their Latest Effort To Mislead The Public - Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/03/15/anti-obamacare-forces-introduce-their-latest-effort-to-mislead-the-public/?utm_source=alertsnewpost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120315)

www.forbes.com (http://www.forbes.com/)

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its 2012 estimate on the ten- year projected cost of the Affordable Care Act. Instantly, the anti-Obamacare crowd took to the airwaves and social media to proclaim that the numbers reveal the costs of the Affordable...(cont. at link.)

[The Lone Bolt]

From the same lying sleezbags that brought you "death panels"...

[W*GS]

UltimateHoboW/Spam gets pwned.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

From the same lying sleezbags that brought you "death panels"...

If we were somehow able to call a moratorium on disinformation for even one election cycle, these douche bags and their party would disappear as if they'd been sucked into a black hole.

[UltimateHoboW/Shotgun]

Love what you guys pass as fact and pwned. LOL

First, that article sooooooo passionately pasted as fact was in reality opinion of an opinion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/03/15/anti-obamacare-forces-introduce-their-latest-effort-to-mislead-the-public/?utm_source=alertsnewpost&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120315

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its 2012 estimate on the ten- year projected cost of the Affordable Care Act. Instantly, the anti-Obamacare crowd took to the airwaves and social media to proclaim that the numbers reveal the costs of the Affordable Care Act to be double what was promised when the law was passed.

Wow. That’s some scary stuff.

Good thing it is a complete and utter falsehood.

I suppose it should not come as a great surprise that the opponents of Obamacare would mobilize—given that the CBO report actually estimates a net decrease in the costs of health care reform totaling $51 billion when compared to last year’s estimates. The last thing those who oppose the law want is Candidate Obama running around the country talking about how the estimated cost of his landmark health care reform are actually going down.

Indeed, not only is the GOP pitch a gross distortion of the truth, this is one of those all too rare moments where I get to actually prove the meme to be nothing more than another effort to confuse Americans.

How?

By simply asking you to read the report. It’s easy. The CBO estimates are available in very readable English—not the government mumbo jumbo techno-speak you might expect. The report is short and to the point. You will not be confused.

The claim being peddled is that the estimated ten-year price tag of the law—initially projected to be about $900 billion to $1 trillion when the law was first passed—has exploded into a projected $1.7 trillion.

Jonathan Cohn offers a great explanation of what the numbers really mean -

To figure out the cost of health care reform, CBO looks at each of the law’s component parts and, for accounting purposes, groups them into different categories. It calls one category “gross cost of coverage expansions” – that’s the amount of money the federal government will spend to help people get insurance, mostly by offering Medicaid to more people or giving people subsidies they can use to help offset the cost of private insurance. Last year, CBO estimated that the gross cost of coverage expansion from 2012 through 2021 would be $1.445 trillion. Now CBO thinks the gross cost will be $1.496 trillion. The number shifted, in part, because the CBO has changed its projections for economic growth. But, in the context of such a large a budget projection, that’s barely any difference at all.

In the this latest estimate, CBO extends its projection out one more year, to capture the expenses from 2012 to 2022, in order to capture a full decade. In 2022, CBO says, the gross cost of coverage expansion will be $265 billion. Add that to the $1.496 and you get (with rounding) the $1.76 trillion – the one in the press releases and the Fox story.

But there is nothing new or surprising about this. It’s only slightly more money than the previous year’s outlays. The ten-year number seems to jump only because the time frame for the estimate has moved, dropping one year, 2011, and adding another, 2022. Obamacare has virtually no outlays in 2011, because the Medicaid expansion and subsidies don’t start up until 2014, which means the shifting time frame drops a year of no implementation and adds one of full implementation.

Even more amazing is that the opponents of Obamacare are completely ignoring the fact that when you include the money coming into the government bank accounts through the various charges included in the ACA, the estimates of the cost of the law are an improvement over last year’s projections.



http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/101741/cbo-obamacare-cost-deficit-lie-double-price-fox

Sorting through the deceptive attacks on health care reform gets old, even for me. But on Wednesday the Republicans and their allies made a claim so obviously misleading that they, and the media outlets parroting them, must have known they spreading false information.

The basis for the claim is the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections for the Affordable Care Act, which critics (and I!) like to call Obamacare. When Congress first passed the law, in the spring of 2010, CBO made official estimates of how much the law would cost, how many people would get insurance as a result, and so on. It updated that estimate one year later and has, now, updated it one more time.

The CBO distributed its report in the morning and, by 11 a.m., Republican offices on Capitol Hill were spitting out press releases about it. According to the Republicans, CBO had discovered that Obamacare was going to cost $1.76 trillion over the next ten years. “The CBO’s revised cost estimate indicates that this massive government intrusion into America’s health care system will be far more costly than was originally claimed,” Tom Price, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said. Within a few hours, both Fox News and the Washington Times were carrying online stories making the same claim. According to the Fox News account, CBO was “showing that the bill is substantially more expensive—twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.”

If CBO had truly determined that health care reform’s cost will be twice the original estimates, it would be huge news. But CBO said nothing of the sort.

To figure out the cost of health care reform, CBO looks at each of the law’s component parts and, for accounting purposes, groups them into different categories. It calls one category “gross cost of coverage expansions”—that’s the amount of money the federal government will spend to help people get insurance, mostly by offering Medicaid to more people or giving people subsidies they can use to help offset the cost of private insurance. Last year, CBO estimated that the gross cost of coverage expansion from 2012 through 2021 would be $1.445 trillion. Now CBO thinks the gross cost will be $1.496 trillion. The number shifted, in part, because the CBO has changed its projections for economic growth. (MSNBC’s Tom Curry has a nice explanation of this.) But, in the context of such a large a budget projection, that’s barely any difference at all.

In the this latest estimate, CBO extends its projection out one more year, to capture the expenses from 2012 to 2022, in order to capture a full decade. In 2022, CBO says, the gross cost of coverage expansion will be $265 billion. Add that to the $1.496 and you get (with rounding) the $1.76 trillion—the one in the press releases and the Fox story.

But there is nothing new or surprising about this. It’s only slightly more money than the previous year’s outlays. The ten-year number seems to jump only because the time frame for the estimate has moved, dropping one year, 2011, and adding another, 2022. Obamacare has virtually no outlays in 2011, because the Medicaid expansion and subsidies don’t start up until 2014, which means the shifting time frame drops a year of no implementation and adds one of full implementation.

Still, doesn’t that just validate what the law’s critics have always said, that the administration was playing games to hide the program’s true impact on the deficit? Hardly. Remember, this is just the raw cost of expanding insurance coverage we’re talking about here—in other words, the money the federal government is sending out the door. The new law also calls for new revenue, in the form of taxes and penalties. It also reduces spending, mostly through Medicare, to help offset the cost of the coverage expansion. When the Affordable Care Act became law, CBO estimated that the net result of all these changes, taken together, would be to reduce the deficit. Now, with this revised estimate, CBO has decided the law will reduce the deficit by even more money.

Yes, you read that right: The real news of the CBO estimate is that, according to its models, health care reform is going to save even more taxpayer dollars than previously thought.

I want to be clear about something. The Affordable Care Act has flaws: Among other things, it reaches fewer people and provides less financial protection than I would prefer. The revised CBO report actually suggests this problem will get mildly worse, since it also expects slightly fewer people to end up with insurance. That’s one reason why the law will cost less; it’s helping fewer people. Another reason is that more employers pay penalties for not offering insurance and more people pay penalties pay penalties for not obtaining it. That’s obviously not great, either.

The report also had one finding that give us at least a little pause: CBO now projects the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance will drop by 4 million people, on net. It’s still a small effect, representing less than 2 percent of the total population with employer-sponsored coverage. That’s well within the margin of error of these models. It’s also difficult to tell why CBO thinks this will happen—whether it’s fewer employers offering insurance, fewer employees accepting coverage, or workers moving into firms that are less likely to provide benefits. Any of those would be consistent with lower economic growth, as CBO now expects. Still, the issue merits attention. (If I can get a more detailed explanation of why CBO thinks this will happen, I’ll update this item.)

But these aren’t the nuanced claims Republicans and their allies are making. Nor are their complaints consistent with this general point of view. On the contrary, if they had their way, health care reform would reach even fewer people and provide less protection.

Meanwhile, the bottom line about Obamacare really hasn’t changed. Notwithstanding these latest adjustments, CBO still thinks it will mean about 30 million additional people get insurance, that insurance will become more secure for those who have it, that the law will more than pay for itself in the first ten years, and that, over the long run, the law will reduce the deficit.

But why admit those things when you can dissemble about them and when outlets like Fox and the Washington Times will let you get away with it?

Update: David Hogberg, of Investor’s Business Daily, noted via Twitter that one reason CBO predicts greater deficit reduction is that more employers and individuals will pay penalties. That’s true and I’ve added a sentence to that effect, although, again, the overall effect here is pretty small.



Here's the point. None of this denies the fact that it will still cost far more than orginally thought. Dumba$$e$. Thats called being pwned. Dip$h!t.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Here's the point. None of this denies the fact that it will still cost far more than orginally thought.


L0L @ you backing away from your original claim, i.e., "1.76 trillion over two years."

Thanks for confirming what we already knew, i.e., that your claims are a bunch of bullsh*t. :welcome:

[W*GS]

HoboSpam doesn't even read what he posts...

Meanwhile, the bottom line about Obamacare really hasn’t changed. Notwithstanding these latest adjustments, CBO still thinks it will mean about 30 million additional people get insurance, that insurance will become more secure for those who have it, that the law will more than pay for itself in the first ten years, and that, over the long run, the law will reduce the deficit.

Hobo is too stupid to realize when he blows his own brains out.

[DenverBrit]

HoboSpam doesn't even read what he posts...


If he did that, he wouldn't post at all.

Wouldn't that be tragic. Uhh