Sadly, this isn't exactly shocking, merely dismaying:
President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO's standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama's pledge that the legislation would cost "around $900 billion over 10 years." When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.
Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law.
They wanted their damn health care law no matter what, so let's not talk about "accounting tricks." They lied so blatantly it wasn't even worth it for them to pretend the weren't lying. This monstrosity can either die slowly, bleeding us more every day it stays alive, or the Supreme Court can kill it all at once. It's said that the justices shouldn't follow the headlines, but we all know they are sometimes influenced by current events. Let's hope they're paying attention now.
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C'mon, Mr. Morris. What's a few hundred billion in cost over-runs ? Hope and Change don't come cheaply.
Poor Craig and "The Cap'n" will furiously Google and provide us with details why this is Bush's fault, or Rush Limbaugh, or Fox News, or Republicans in general.
The notion that the Affordable Care Act will cost such-and-so is kinda specious. If the city takes over a private water/sewer utility, doesn't change operations, and doesn't change the rate schedule, there is no new cost, even though the checks are written to government instead of a private company.
Similarly, requiring people to buy insurance instead of filing bankruptcy isn't an added cost.
Some people will receive care early, rather than late. Under the 'stitch in time" theory, that should cut costs.
Which will it be, folks? Pay for an oil filter today, or a new engine tomorrow?
Harl's got a good point. Which is less expensive: getting people taken care of on a regular basis, or making it so sickness has to be life-threatening before they finally have to go to the ER or die?
Because ER care is way more expensive than preventative care, and those charges don't often get paid by people who didn't have the money for regular treatment to begin with.
Health care rationing is now taking place via the market - those fortunate to work for big $$$ firms and corps get health care those working for small potato and mom and pops can only dream of.
If we make all equal and preventative, then that could be great. Could be only the government can so coordinate, such as in England, Canada and Cuba. We should all be sure we are willing to go to systems such as those in exchange for the inequities inherent in the current system.
But wait, there is more. Study the demographic curve of this nation. Aging population due to fewer babes being conceived (contraception) and more being aborted. The missing generation is being filled in by illegals, who, by and large, are not generating the revenue needed to fund the best in health care.
But wait, there is more. Thirty years of antimanufactoring laws and regs in DC by sold out congressmen is collapsing the sector of our economy that generates most lucrative exports, cutting our GDP.
And thus, rationing health care will be necessary and, it appears, will be headed by the government.
Get ready for national identity cards (or will it just be retina scans) allowing each of just so much health care -- and, after that, a black market for the rich (else go to central american boutiques) and a death sentence for the poor (especially the elderly poor).
Obama or not, here it comes. The Demographic curve and GDP charts do not lie.
The calculation may be correct in how much the plan will cost government, but it obviously doesn't take into consideration money saved by citizens who no longer have to pay for private care. I don't pretend to know whether the plan will be a net gain or a net loss, but neither should you. It seems to work pretty well for every other industrialized country. Why do conservatives assume the United States is the only country incapable of the same?
How is it working in the Netherlands? And it is my understanding that at age in Britian your health card is marked "NTBR" Not to be resuscitated. No use putting scarce public moneys into a nontaxpaying pensioner, right?
So only the Netherlands is having a problem? Is it a problem with the structure of their healthcare or something else?
Is the NTBR any different then a DNR order here?
More questions than answers given there.
One of the reasons that government healthcare in other countries may have some success is because they can afford it.
Israel gets something like 10 billion dollars from us annually. Could they afford their healthcare as they now know it without this help?
Let's move out troops from Europe and tell them we can't afford to protect them any more. Could they afford government healthcare as they now know it, any more?
We can't afford government healthcare in the U.S. is because there is too much development in new technologies and and too many life saving procedures that prolong life that in other countries they would just let the person die. It all costs.
I don't mind helping someone. Just don't put a gun to my head and tell me I'm your slave.
Great points RAG. Much of the west is already socialized, with Uncle Sam playing the sugar daddy. This must end.