No wonder Democrats had to rush passage of their health care overhaul legislation:
Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.
The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.
Over at Verum Serum, John observes, this “almost precisely negates the amount the bill is supposed to reduce the deficit, i.e. $138 billion.” And let’s not forget this is over a ten-year period during which the program is only fully operational in the last six years.
First, we had the report of the Medicare actuary, then we learned that companies might start “dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.” Guess we could say we told you so.
Don’t think this program will be cutting health care costs or reducing the deficit as the Democrats promised. And even with their promises, they couldn’t sell it to the American people (but they could sell it to Congress). Wonder what this latest report will do for its numbers. I mean, most people never even believed it would cut the deficit anyway:
. . . according to a Rasmussen poll released this morning before the new CBO figures came out, the number who think O-Care will increase the deficit is at its highest level yet and approaching supermajority levels. If you think repeal or serious revision is impossible, think again.
If this gets any coverage, it’s going to do wonders for the president’s poll numbers — and those of Democrats.
RELATED: 56% of American Voters Want Dem’s Obamacare Law Repealed
Explain why I’m supposed to take a 10%-hit on MY standard-of-living to guarantee the lifestyle of the medical elites in-perpetuity??
ObamaCare will prove to be problematic and create (most likely, like technological advances also) just as many problems as it may intend to address. It’s the nature of problems for which we have no pragmatic solutions, and in the eyes of many means that we really do not have a health care issue / problem.
However, to the extent that either side of the aisle has a theoretical interest in improving the health of its citizens and the health care provided, it is necessary to recognize two very fundamental issues:
1) The politicalization of the issue, or utilization of an ideological approach, will not result in an effective solution, because most human beings are not sufficiently self-motivated to pursue optimal health. It’s just not going to happen, and an ideological approach does not advance the health agenda.
2) Because of our (minimum of) two party governmental system, ANY approach formulated will be ineffective because it is a moderate, piecemeal, compromised approach to solving the problem. Imagine giving kids a vaccine which has been diluted, watered down, or adulterated with all sorts of ingredients not essential to attacking the disease.
Why do ANYTHING if it is not going to be effective? Why waste the time and the money pursuing goals through ineffective means?
This issue will NEVER be resolved by either side as long as people have freedom of choice. It’s the nature of human beings.
As Dirty Harry once said, “A man (or humankind) has to know his (or its) limitations.
Ted,
You’re forgetting something. The ultimate goal is to have an unelected ELITE be in charge of ALL health care decisions. Obamacare is the intermediate step. Soon 10% will be seen as a SAVINGS.
Most transparent administration, ever.
The shock of this is more than my poor heart can stand. I can not believe that Obamacare has been so infiltrated by Halliburton and Cheney that it is now on the edge of breaking the iron-clad pledges that Obama made.
What will Obambipelosiereid do? Why, they will focus like a laser on this and maintain the justly earned reputation for the most ethical Congress ever and fix it. Except, Fox News will not report it and Rush Limbaugh will tell big, fat lies about it and Glenn Beck will doodle on his chalkboard and ignore all the walking on water and deficit reducing magic.
I hope I still get my free male pattern baldness treatment and my pigment augmentation therapy for the bottoms of my big toes.
Is there anyone – ANYONE here who thought for an instant that this wouldn’t go over a trillion dollars? That maybe Obama is such a big spender as to make Bush look like an amateur? That Obamacare will be a disaster no matter how much or how little they spend? This administration can’t possibly be thinking of anything less than complete destruction of our economy. I never thought I’d long for the days of Jimmy Carter…
Just what was it we were supposed to like after it passed?
What part of “illegal” don’t you guys understand? Healthcare reform is now a law!
If we start repealing laws we think are unjust, we might end up repealing DADT or DOMA!
Heck, if we’re going to repeal laws, we might just as well put up a big “Welcome!” sign on the Mexico/AZ border!
I think we should deport every person who does not comply with the new healthcare law. And we should stop anyone on the street to make sure they have their insurance papers.
But, I heard a headline today, that if these new numbers are accurate, Obama will now veto this bill! He can still do that, right? I mean, he only signed it a couple weeks ago, and he still gets a do-over, right?!?
(I believe Rush pulled this headline off a Fox ticker during his show near the bottom of the 2nd hour today)
discretionary spending, right? so that means that the actual cost of the bill hasn’t increased, it just has the potential to increase, assuming that congress appropriates the funds.
Yes, it’s ‘discretionary’ spending to which they are referring. However, we are also referring to a Congress that’s not met a ‘spending’ it didn’t like and to whom ‘discretionary’ is a synonym for ‘carte blanch’.
They’re ready to hire 16,000 Sandmen to hunt down those Runners.
Another little Easter Egg in ObamaCare: 4% tax on home sales. If you sell your house for $300,000, Obama gets $12,000 of it.