Thread: Latest CBO Report: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion!

I think the SCOTUS should only decide if a law is Constitutional or not. If any part of a law is found to be unconstitutional, the entire law should be null and void. Take Healthcare. If people can't be forced to buy insurance as stated in the law, the healthcare system just became welfare. Nobody needs insurance until they are sick. The insurance companies won't be able to decline coverage because of preexisting conditions. That one little line stricken from the law made this whole mess even more unsustainable. $2T more unsustainable from our pockets.

Who cares about the CBO? The CBO was sitting around with their pants down and playing with themselves when the bill was being discussed. They claimed that the bill would save us a trillion. They have zero credibility now and forever. The CBO should be eliminated.

Originally Posted by James Cessna

I happened to run this most interesting review the other day.

It is very good . It gives several good reasons the Affordable Health Care Act is very bad bill.

" And what would we get for all of this? The CBO says that health insurance premiums would rise by 10 to 13 percent in the individual market, in relation to current law. The Medicare Chief Actuary says that the percentage of the gross domestic product spent on health care would also rise in relation to current law, increasing from 17 percent today to 21 percent in 2019. And, as the CBO reports in its latest scoring, as of 2019 there would still be 23 million people in America lacking health insurance."

Article follows.

Latest CBO Analysis: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion

To see the bill’s true first-decade costs, we need to start the clock when the costs would actually start in any meaningful way: in 2014. The CBO says that Obamacare would cost $2.0 trillion in the bill’s real first decade (from 2014 to 2023) — and much more in the decades to come.

But $2.0 trillion wouldn’t be the total ten-year costs. Instead, that would merely be the “gross cost of coverage provisions.” Based on earlier incarnations of the proposed overhaul, the total costs would be about a third higher (the exact number can’t be gleaned from the CBO’s analysis, which is only preliminary and is not a full scoring) — making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill’s real first decade.

How would we pay for all of this? According to the CBO, by diverting $1.1 trillion away from already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it on Obamacare, and by increasing taxes on the American people by over $1 trillion. Among the Medicare cuts would be cuts of $25,000 in Medicare Advantage benefits per enrollee — up from $21,000 in the previous scoring. To be clear, those living in South Florida wouldn’t have to worry about this, as the newly politicized nature of health care would cause them to be exempted. These cuts would affect only less-fortunate seniors, namely those living in just about any other part of the country.

We’d also pay for this through increased deficits. Under strict instructions from the Democrats, the CBO gave Obamacare credit for over $400 billion (from 2014 to 2023) in phony “savings” that would allegedly result from cutting doctor’s payments under Medicare by over 20 percent and never raising them back up. As the CBO notes, one of two things could happen: Congress could either follow through on these severe pay cuts — in which case doctors would view all Medicare patients as if they have the plague — or, Congress could eliminate these pay cuts — as everyone in Washington expects to have happen under the so-called “doc fix” — in which case the CBO projects that this bill would raise deficits by over $100 billion from 2017 to 2019 alone.

So, after racking up higher deficit spending in two years than President Bush (or any other president) did in two terms, President Obama would leave his successor a 12-figure deficit related to Obamacare alone — for the period from 2017 to 2019 alone. That’s according to the CBO.

And what would we get for all of this? The CBO says that health insurance premiums would rise by 10 to 13 percent in the individual market, in relation to current law. The Medicare Chief Actuary says that the percentage of the gross domestic product spent on health care would also rise in relation to current law, increasing from 17 percent today to 21 percent in 2019. And, as the CBO reports in its latest scoring, as of 2019 there would still be 23 million people in America lacking health insurance.

Two trillion dollars is a lot to spend on something that Americans don’t want.

Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/...rillion?page=2

Obamacare is a gathering storm and if the SCOTUS upholds the mandate it will be the most disasterous legislation in US history. It will be the final blow to our economy which will never recover. That of which I have no doubt.

And yet speaking with a health actuary recently (you know, someone who knows a great deal about health care costs), he believes Obama care is a great first step, a huge improvement over what we had, but not as good as the single payer for all we will adopt in time, before we go to government run health care, the best option of all.
But he is just basing that on cost and quality of care, he isn't taking into account partisan emotions.

Yea, health actuaries are never partisan. ([/sarcasm])

Obamacare was passed with one intent: completely gut the private heath insurance industry so we would have no choice but to turn to big mommy government for relief.

Originally Posted by C-B-M

Who cares about the CBO? The CBO was sitting around with their pants down and playing with themselves when the bill was being discussed. They claimed that the bill would save us a trillion. They have zero credibility now and forever. The CBO should be eliminated.

The CBO's projections are based on the information they're given to make said assumptions.

They have more data now, so their projections should be more accurate. Of course the original assumptions were bullshit, and they knew it, however it's not their job to tell you it's crap, just run the numbers and feed it to you.

Originally Posted by 9aces

The CBO's projections are based on the information they're given to make said assumptions.

They have more data now, so their projections should be more accurate. Of course the original assumptions were bullshit, and they knew it, however it's not their job to tell you it's crap, just run the numbers and feed it to you.

That's right, which is why they should be eliminated. Everything that you said there is true and correct. But what does that mean? You have an agency that literally says "we accept any numbers you give us and then we'll run a projection on it." Uh, OK. So why are you even around? I mean, if you use my numbers and you don't get the conclusion I wanted, then that would be pretty pathetic. The reason they're around is to provide "non-partisan" credibility, where people go "oh, the CBO said blah blah blah" and everyone goes "holy sh*t, the CBO said that?? Proof!" It's an utterly useless agency. Therefore, eliminate it.

Responding to the OP:
Ouch. That hurts, particularly considering our present economic condition.

All the more reason to repeal it as quickly as possible. Too bad that it won't be until January 2013. Repealing it coulnd't possibly happen fast enough, and I fear the damage that it might have already done to the health care system.

All those who supported Obamacare own those who opposed it an apology (IMHO).

goober
And yet speaking with a health actuary recently (you know, someone who knows a great deal about health care costs), he believes Obama care is a great first step, a huge improvement over what we had, but not as good as the single payer for all we will adopt in time, before we go to government run health care, the best option of all.
But he is just basing that on cost and quality of care, he isn't taking into account partisan emotions.

Anyone who is not a complete fool, or blinded by ideological fervor, understands that ObamaCare represents a MASSIVE spending increase, that is only "paid" for by dishonest assumptions and other accounting tricks. If this actuary thinks increasing spending by more than 2 trillion in the first decade alone represents a "good first step", then he is a fool.

Obama LIED when he said this bill bends the "cost curve down", the costs go UP BY TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

goober apparently knows the dumbest actuary in the world. I'd brag about that, too.

Originally Posted by Marcus1124

Anyone who is not a complete fool, or blinded by ideological fervor, understands that ObamaCare represents a MASSIVE spending increase, that is only "paid" for by dishonest assumptions and other accounting tricks. If this actuary thinks increasing spending by more than 2 trillion in the first decade alone represents a "good first step", then he is a fool.

Obama LIED when he said this bill bends the "cost curve down", the costs go UP BY TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

How is it a "massive spending increase"?
Are you saying that without ObamaCare, we will spend two trillion less on health care?
We'll just let people die, deny them care, unless of course they can come up with the cash.

It's in the Weekly Standard, and the link is broken.

But if it makes you happy, believe what you want, let me say that I trust the opinion of a guy who has been a health actuary for 35 years, on how health insurance works, but then I think Nobel Prize winning economists have a better grasp on the subject of economics, than people who never took an economics course in their entire life.....

Originally Posted by goober

We'll just let people die, deny them care, unless of course they can come up with the cash.

You mean like we do now? Cool!

Another great example of "I don't know what I'm talking about, but as long as I say that an expert agrees with me, that settles it! Proof!"

goober
How is it a "massive spending increase"?
Are you saying that without ObamaCare, we will spend two trillion less on health care?
We'll just let people die, deny them care, unless of course they can come up with the cash.

NO, the CBO is saying that ObamaCare represents a two trillion dollar increase in healthcare costs over the next decade (and likely to escalate even more in future decades) over what we would have spent otherwise. Now, you can argue that this is a good thing, that all those poor people who would otherwise have gotten no healthcare will, but that does not change the fact that it was utterly dishonest of Obama to sell this to the American people as "bending the cost curve down".

And guess what, there ARE death panels in the bill, bureaucrats who will decide what will and will not be funded NOT based on what a Doctor and their patient decide is in THAT patient's best interest, but what various averages and metrics say is best. And YES, Obama WILL let granny die earlier, or at the very least limit spending on her such that her quality of life will make her less inclined to want to live (Obama, not mean greedy Republicans was the one to suggest that it isn't in SOCIETY'S interest to provide, say hip replacements to people beyond a certain age).

At least when it is left to the market, whether people will or will not get the healthcare they want is determined basically by what they have done in their lives to earn that access. When the government controls it (as you clearly want it to) those decisions will be based on political favoritism, generalized statitics rather than individual patient treatment decisions, and the very type of cost-benefit weighing that Obama has basically admitted supporting.

If you start from the premise that healthcare is a "right" that society is morally obligated to provide to everyone, where do you draw the line (which MUST be drawn otherwise it will bankrupt and destroy our society)? If an 80 year old weighs their options between spending all their remaining life savings for a treatment that might extend their life for a few months, and decides that he or she would prefer to leave their family some money rather than extend their life a few months, that is a perfectly reasonable, and completely PERSONAL decision to make. When you insert government into that decision, it becomes a fundamentally IMMORAL decision that is made for that person.

Goober
But if it makes you happy, believe what you want, let me say that I trust the opinion of a guy who has been a health actuary for 35 years, on how health insurance works, but then I think Nobel Prize winning economists have a better grasp on the subject of economics, than people who never took an economics course in their entire life.....

Projected increases in healthcare costs have gone UP (both for the public and private sector) since Obamacare was passed. That means your friend is WRONG and Obama was WRONG, and only a complete idiot now believes that ObamaCare will be anything but another budget buster, the costs for which will vastly exceed all predictions of its supporters, and the benefits will dramatically under deliver over time.