On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs ”” health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits ”” would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.
Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?
The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.
In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.
[blockquote] As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt.[/blockquote]
All these people should go to jail.
As it says, the CBO has to take things in this bill at face value. In at least one iteration of the bill (haven’t verified if it is still in there) a significant amount of tax revenue increase was included because ‘when employers health costs decline they will give those savings to their employees as pay raises’ thus increasing revenue to the government. This amount was enough in an earl bill to change the bill from a $93 Billion dollar deficit to a $2 Billion dollar surplus! Anyone that believes this bill will reduce the deficit has not actually paid attention to the way our government has spent money over the past decades. Shame on congress for playing these games with our money, and the future of our economy.
Is it possible the CBO is the only group of people who have read the entire bill?