Healthcare law repeal hurts deficits: CBO
Latest:
http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-obamacare-price-tag-shifts-940-billion-1-163500655.html
Is GOP Serious on Repealing The Healthcare Law? Here Is A Warning Message
by Scott77 44 Replies latest social current
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botchtowersociety
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designs
Affordable Health Care Act, 'we are the ones we have been waiting for'.
Would you prefer to spend $1Trillion on Health Care for every citizen or on War.
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Scott77
The Obama Health Care law is now before the US Supreme Court. Is there any idea how the justices are going to rule?
Scott77
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designs
It will need one of the conservative Judges to side with the liberal judges. Let hope that happens.
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Berengaria
3/15/2012 @ 12:14PM | 13,191 views
Anti-Obamacare Forces Introduce Their Latest Effort To Mislead The Public
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.
Making the claim that the costs have doubled is like reading an accounting ledger and only looking at the liabilities side of the equation to inform your opinion.If you read a net worth statement that reveals $1 million in debts —and you go no further—you get a very different picture of someone’s financial situation than you would if you also took a look at the asset side of the ledger where you find $10 million in real estate holdings and $500,000 cash in the bank.
That is what is the Angry Americans are seeking to do here.
How do you know I’m telling you the truth? Read the report.
Here’s a bit of what you are going to find –
CBO and JCT now estimate that the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of just under $1.1 trillion over the 2012–2021 period—about $50 billion less than the agencies’ March 2011 estimate for that 10-year period.
CBO Report March 12, 2012
How can this be? How could anyone take a $50 billion improvement in the projections over last year and turn it into an alleged doubling of costs?
Here’s how. You pick a big number and then use it to either tell the world you do not possess the most basic understanding of the actual math or you just out-and-out lie about what the number means. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is at work in this instance.
And then you simply ignore the CBO estimate projecting that the ‘hit’ to the deficit is actually lower than anticipated last year-
Over the 10-year period from 2012 through 2021, enactment of the coverage provisions of the ACA was projected last March to increase federal deficits by $1,131 billion, whereas the March 2012 estimate indicates that those provisions will increase deficits by $1,083 billion. The net cost was boosted by an additional $168 billion in estimated costs for Medicaid and CHIP and $8 billion less in estimated revenues from the excise tax on high-premium health insurance plans. But those increases were more than offset by a reduction of $97 billion in the projected costs for the tax credits and other subsidies for health insurance provided through the exchanges and related spending, a reduction of $20 billion in the projected costs for tax credits for small employers, and a reduction of $107 billion in deficits from the projected revenue effects of changes in taxable compensation and penalty payments and from other small changes in estimated spending.
CBO Report, March 12, 2012
If you will, just this once, read the actual CBO report, it will be an eye opening experience. After you do, and have satisfied yourself that maybe those who you have counted on to inform your own opinion might be misleading you—ask yourself why they would do that.
And then ask yourself why anyone would take a proposed, one-time free visit with your physician to discuss how you want your medical treatment to be handled when you reach the end of your life— thereby taking the burden from your family—and turn such a proposal into the “death panels”. We all know that the end of life is when the big bucks are spent in health care just as we know that, when given a catalyst to face the issue, people will make decisions for themselves that will prevent a terrible waste of money as children try to save a parent’s life that cannot be saved or that would be something other than what that parent would have wanted.
If you don’t begin to see the extraordinary effort that has—and is—being made to distract you from the benefits of the Affordable Care Act—all in the name of the special interests who stand to lose—and begin to question whether you have given this law a fair chance, then you are not going to be reached.
But, if you will take just a moment to read the CBO estimate, you will at least know that you are not being told the truth by those whom you believe have your best interests at heart.
Read the report.
www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf
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NewChapter
Here is one inescapable fact. More and more people are coming to see quality health care as a right, not a privilige. America should be embarrassed that when we are compared with countries like England, Canada and Japan, our citizens have less access to that quality health care. A country such as ours leaving people to fend for themselves in a hateful system that only the fortunate have any hope of navigating is outrageous.
There comes moments when humans decide that some things are more important than profit. We haven't reached that moment. Money is still more valuable than life in this country, and pretending otherwise is just humorous. So Obama came up with a system that still allowed profit while working to give coverage to a great deal more people. A single payer system would have been more effective, but we follow profit.
Obama has been the only president to make any progress in this area, and it is not enough, but the forces he has come against are powerful, rich and completely able to feed false information to the emotional masses.
He has offered an out to the states. They simply need to come up with a program that offers the same coverage guarantees to their citizens as the national plan does. Come on states! Show us what you got. You want this issue back in your hands, take up the challenge. Prove to the public that this is better handled by the states. We are listening! chirp, chirp, chirp.
Except Vermont, the silence is stunning.
So what Republicans are really saying is they want to go back to how it used to be---the problem is ignored or poorly handled. When they say this should be handled at a state level, they really mean it should not be handled at all.
Well public sentiment is changing. This is no longer acceptable. So until you can come up with a workable solution to a problem that has plagued our country for so long now (and I don't mean a Ron Paul solution, which would require ripping down the government and monetary system and building it up from scratch---something WORKABLE), then really why do you even bother talking?
If there is a better solution, then the states should do it. Obama has given them the leeway. But if your answer is absolutely nothing, it is very hard to take you seriously.
People need health care. We are not going to be a country where only the fortunate that excel at the brutal game of capitalism can get it. Just face the reality and go from there. Work with it. Get the states to work with it.
NC
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Justitia Themis
So what Republicans are really saying is they want to go back to how it used to be
Republicans would like to derail Obamacare, wait until a Republican president is in office, present an essentially similar plan, and then take credit for 'solving the healthcare crisis.'
The individual mandate is a Republican idea. It was first proposed by Republicans Chaffee and Hatch in the Health Equity and Accesss Reform Act of 1993. This act was a codification of a policy paper written by Mark Pauly for the uber-right Heritage Foundation, and it was the counter to Hillary's employer mandate.
Here is a direct quote from the Act:
· Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005. Provides an exception for any individual who is opposed for religious reasons to health plan coverage, including those who rely on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone.
Here are some other very telling quotes:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
Copyright (c) 1994 The St. Louis Post-DispatchNovember 20, 1994Rep. Jim Talent, R-Chesterfield, predicts that something called the medical savings account, or health-care IRA, will be the centerpiece of the Republican health-care package.
Talent says he would favor solving the free-rider problem by replacing Clinton's employer mandate with an individualmandate: Every American would be required to buy at least a basic level of health insurance. (In his proposal, the government would subsidize poor people's medical IRAs in a program that would look a lot like today's earned-income tax credit.)Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright 1994 PG Publishing Co.April 11, 1994Republicans are ready to stall debate on health care and other issues if Democrats block efforts to set up hearings on the Clintons' Whitewater land deal, Sen. Minority Leader Bob Dole said yesterday.
Mitchell said he thought the two parties could work out a compromise on the key issue of who will pay under a new health care plan. He said there wasn't that much difference between the administration's support for employer mandates, in which employers contribute to their workers' health insurance, and individualmandates backed by Dole.
Gingrich:
· At an Alegent Health event in Omaha in 2008, Gingrich said it was "fundamentally immoral" for a person to go without coverage, show up at an emergency room and demand free care.
· During the keynote address to the Greater Detroit Area Health Council's annual Health Trends Conference in April 2006, Gingrich said he would require Americans earning above a certain income level to buy health insurance or post a bond, the Detroit Free Press reported
· In a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Gingrich wrote, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it." An "individual mandate," he added, should be applied "when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed."
· 2005's "Winning the Future," he expanded on the idea in more detail: "You have the right to be part of the lowest-cost insurance pool and you have a responsibility to buy insurance. ... We need some significant changes to ensure that every American is insured, but we should make it clear that a 21st Century Intelligent System requires everyone to participate in the insurance system."
· People whose income is too low should receive Medicaid vouchers and tax credits to buy insurance," he continued. "Large risk pools (association health plans are one model) should be established so low-income people can buy insurance as inexpensively as large corporations. Furthermore, it should be possible to buy your health insurance on-line to lower the cost as much as possible."
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NewChapter
It was a republican plan, but like all things republican, if it is more than an year old, it is too liberal, and their memory is very poor.
NC
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Justitia Themis
LOL! I copied and pasted information from a presentation I made in Topics in Law and Medicine. However, I just found this lovely side-by-side comparison of the two plans (Republican's 1993 plan and Obama's) by the Kaiser Foundation. O.M.G. Even I didn't realize the extent of their similarities.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/graphics/2010/022310-bill-comparison.aspx
Bill
Major Provisions Senate Bill 2009 Sen. Chafee (R) Bill 1993 Rep. Boehner (R) Bill 2009 Require Individuals To Purchase Health Insurance
(Includes Religious and/or Hardship Exemption)Yes Yes
No (individuals without
coverage would be taxed)Requires Employers To Offer Health Insurance To Employees Yes (above 50 employees, must help pay for insurance costs to workers receiving tax credits
for insurance)Yes (but no requirement to contribute to premium cost)
No
Standard Benefits Package Yes
Yes
No
Bans Denying Medical Coverage For Pre-existing Conditions Yes
Yes
No (establishes high risk pools)
Establish State-based Exchanges/Purchasing Groups Yes
Yes
No
Offers Subsidies For Low-Income People To Buy Insurance Yes
Yes
No
Long Term Care Insurance Yes (sets up a voluntary insurance plan)
Yes (sets standards for insurance)
No
Makes Efforts To Create More Efficient Health Care System Yes
Yes
Yes
Medicaid Expansion Yes
No
No
Reduces Growth In Medicare Spending Yes
Yes
No
Medical Malpractice Reform No
Yes
Yes
Controls High Cost Health Plans Yes (taxes on plans over $8,500 for single coverage to $23,000 for family plan)
Yes (caps tax exemption for employer-sponsored plans)
No
Prohibits Insurance Company From Cancelling Coverage Yes
Yes
Yes
Prohibits Insurers From Setting Lifetime Spending Caps Yes
No
Yes
Equalize Tax Treatment For Insurance Of Self-Employed No
Yes
No
Extends Coverage To Dependents Yes (up to age 26)
No
Yes (up to age 25)
Cost $871 billion over 10 years
No CBO estimate
$8 billion over 10 years
Impact On Deficit Reduces by $132 billion over 10 years
No CBO estimate
Reduces by $68 billion over 10 years
Percentage Of Americans Covered 94% by 2019
92-94% by 2005
82% by 2019