| Submit your comments on this article |
| Economy |
| CBO: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion |
| 2010-03-19 |
| The CBO's most recent analysis is out, and it's not likely to convince wavering House Democrats to jump to the Obamacare side of the fence. Even the Democrats are granting that the latest version of their proposed health care overhaul would cost $69 billion more than the previous version. According to the CBO, this version would siphon even more money out of Medicare, make even further cuts to Medicare Advantage, and levy even higher taxes and fines on the American people. President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and their allies, are cheerfully citing "ten year" costs of $940,000,000,000.00 -- apparently believing this to be far more palatable figure than $1 trillion. But even this colossal tally is like the introductory price quoted by a cell phone provider. It's the price before you pay for minutes, fees, and overcharges -- and before the price balloons after the introductory offer expires. For a variety of reasons, this tally doesn't remotely reflect the bill's real ten-year costs. First, it includes 2010 as the initial year. As most people are well aware, 2010 has now been underway for some time. Therefore, the CBO would normally count 2011 as the first year of its analysis, just as it counted 2010 as the first year when analyzing the initial House health bill in the middle of 2009. But under strict instructions from Democratic leaders, and over strong objections from Republicans, the CBO dutifully scored 2010 as the first year of the latest version of Obamacare. If the clock were started in 2011, the first full year that the bill could possibly be in effect, the CBO says that the bill's ten-year costs would be $1.2 trillion. But even that wouldn't come close to reflecting the bill's true costs. The CBO projects that over the next four years, less than two percent of the bill's alleged "ten year" costs would hit: just $17 billion of the $940 billion in costs that the Democrats are claiming. In fact, the costs through President Obama's entire presidency, should he be reelected, would be $336 billion. What would the president leave behind for his successor? According to the CBO, he would leave behind costs of $837 billion during his successor's first term alone. If his successor were to serve a second term, he or she would inherit a cool $2.0 trillion in Obamacare costs -- about six times its costs during Obama's own tenure. This legislation is a ticking time-bomb. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 Obama's plan mandates dozens of new entitlement programs and creates scores of new government offices, bureaus, commissions, and programs, all of which will have to be funded, staffed and managed at taxpayer cost. Have all these been added into the cost by CBO? What about the effects of inflation? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-03-19 17:30 |
| #6 Ibelieve you are going to see unemployment rise rapidly if this turkey passes. With perpetual jobless benefits and no health insurance benefit for getting a job, congratulations I think you've broken the code. |
| Posted by: regular joe 2010-03-19 16:43 |
| #5 Has the CBO costed out the unemployment insurance it is going to have to pay out because of layoffs and businesses closing or relocation to some other country? See Drudge's posting on Catepillar--health care will cost them $100 million (or job killion) per year in added costs. Donald Trump said this morning that a friend of his who is a manufacturer said it will cost his company $200 million/year. What does Barry and his fellow travelers think that is going to do to busness. I guess they don't care. They are more concerned about Barry's presidency/legacy and about the "collective ideal" (translate how you want to). Personally, I translate that into the destruction of capitalism, government control of everything, destruction of individualism, and redistribution of wealth. I believe you are going to see unemployment rise rapidly if this turkey passes. We will rapidly go into a downgrading by Moody's, China will call in the money we owe them or increase the interest on the money we owe them; a down spiral will ensue. These viral economics and politics will be the ruination of America. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-03-19 13:25 |
| #4 2 problems: 1 - its government, so ya got to multiply by a factor of at least 2.5 2 - this is a "snapshot of today" guestimate and has no 4th dimension to it. As people will have less money to spend, business will suffer and people will not be able to pay off property. So the three main ways government garnishes peoples' money: sales tax, payroll withholding, and property tax will all decline. Then there is the possibility of the dollar tanking with a loss of reliability rating. *nevermind the rules the CBO must follow. What this number is, is the absolute bullshit minimum cost which will occur. **and that is the fundamental flaw in communist/socialist theory. It assumes a snapshot of time where committees jaw around about how to do this and that to equalize everything. Meanwhile the world continues on and has changed even before what even an idealized plan would be formed. Then you get into the psychology of the people who form said plan and realize that no two people have the exact same opinion of justice or equality then take that factor to the total number of policy makers and you get madness with the only common denomenator being: power. Collectivist leaders are innately cowards relying on the deeds of others for their own benifits, having more in common with the bitter emo kid suddenly class president than those depicted by famous statues. In the chessgame of life you are not a pawn, you are a prawn. The real pawns are your reps in government, heads of unions, community organizers. To them you are bottom feeders to them, and that water you haul is used water. Consol yourselves though, if you work together you may all only have to drink one mouthful of it and if you are lucky you do not get into an arguement over who took the biggist gulp and can split that one coin of blood money at the bottom of the bucket evenly. You will feel warm inside as you tell your kids you did your part as you throw another piles of benjamins into the pyre so that they too will feel the warmth. Or you can do your part to put this down, realizing that if this is how dissinters are treated then you too can be instantly recategorized as a dissenter in the whif of a press conference televised from a secure location far, far away. They will give you up in an instant to bear the brunt of their consequence of action, history shows that, if they even had the trust to teach you that history in the first place. Meanwhile they will sun on an island beach, occasionally fishing in their private reserve moat for sport and game food illegal for the polis to even be allowed upon. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-03-19 12:21 |
| #3 Medicare was supposed to cost only $9 B/year when costed out back in the 1960s. It now costs around $70 B/year. Social Security was robbed and is now broke when Johnson put the funds into the general operating fund. Can anyone think of any social programs conducted by the Federal government that have cost what was said they would cost? The Democrats are working on the assumption that everyone should have health care. These are the same geniuses that said everyone should own their own home and came up with subprime loans--you know buy a house with no job, no income, and no money down. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-03-19 09:49 |
| #2 On the radio it's being touted as a "savings." I was somewhat skeptical, to say the least. This morning, there were ads complaing there was a steath student-loan government-takeover issue buried in the morass. I wonder what else is hidden in there? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2010-03-19 06:07 |
| #1 If I understood Obamao's interview on Fox correctly, there are still some outstanding insurance issues that have not been addressed by this "comprehensive" healthcare takeover. One of the issues was for about $300B. I suppose this means they will tack that on later and blame a lot of the initial cost overruns on this and hope that people get tired of following it after a while. I'm sure that there are several other shoes that will drop along these lines too. |
| Posted by: gorb 2010-03-19 01:49 |