The Real Cost of Obamacare

From a post by Michael F. Cannon at The Cato Institute Web site about the real cost of Obamacare:

The CBO's scoring rules don't paint the full picture of what the health care plan before Congress would really wind up costing Americans. The truth is, Obama plan would vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government, and increase our already record federal deficit.

Democrats have so thoroughly gamed the budget process and the Congressional Budget Office's scoring rules that the official cost estimates of the Obama health plan reveal but a sliver of the legislation's full cost. The Obama plan would vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government, and increase our already record federal deficit.

To hear Democrats tell it, the CBO projects the legislation would cost a mere $940 billion over the next 10 years. The CBO said no such thing: that figure pertains only to provisions aimed at expanding health insurance. Other spending provisions bring the cost to $1.2 trillion.

Then there's the additional $208 billion that Democrats plan to spend on physicians who participate in Medicare. Democrats moved that into a separate bill to reduce the apparent cost of the main health care bill. Including that spending in the estimate completely wipes out the Obama plan's professed $138 billion of deficit reduction. After correcting for that gimmick (and accounting for how the two measures would interact), the CBO estimates really indicate that the Obama plan would increase federal deficits by $59 billion over the next 10 years.

Even worse, Democrats hid another $1.5 trillion by preventing the CBO from scoring the legislation's hidden taxes. At present, when Congress takes money from workers and gives it to private insurers, the CBO counts that as a tax. The Obama plan's "individual mandate" would force workers to give money directly to private insurers, which the president's economic advisers admit is also a tax. If history is any guide, those hidden taxes would cost roughly $1.5 trillion – but you won't find any such estimate in the CBO's score.

If you've been keeping count, we've revealed the actual cost of the bill is nearly $3 trillion. But to believe this legislation would cost "only" $3 trillion, we would have to assume that after President Obama signs it into law, it would be rushed to the National Archives and entombed within an impenetrable vault where it would never again be touched by God or man.

Read the full post at the link below:

Do the Math — Obamacare Would Increase Deficits by $59 Billion | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

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Originally posted at TONY PHYRILLAS