Fix Health Care Policy

Left Now Admitting Obamacare Full of Budget Gimmicks

President Barack Obama again asserted today that his health care plan would be deficit neutral chiding: “The argument that opponents are making against this bill does not hold water.”

But while the President’s most ardent supporters are trying to explain to each other why the benefits of the bill do not start until 2014, they are openly admitting that Obama’s deficit busting claims are complete fiction:

The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein: “The delay is a budget trick, an attempt to lower the 10-year cost of the bill at the expense of the very people we’re trying to help.”

Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum: “I’m pretty sure the 2014 date is mostly due to budget finagling. This stuff can’t be done overnight, but I’ll bet most of it could be implemented within 12 months, and it could certainly be implemented within 24.”

Talking Points Memo‘s Josh Marshall: “My impression is that some of the delays are there because it makes the budgetary accounting work better in terms of deficit neutrality. And I know the Dems would likely lose critical support without being able to show that the overall bill actually lowers the deficit. But if that’s the main reason, I suspect the legislative authors may be too clever by half since they may be slitting the bill’s and perhaps their own throats in the process.”

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Tags: CLASS Act, doc fix, Medicare cuts, trillion dollar deficits

Washington Post: Obamacare “Unsustainable”

The Washington Post editorial board writes on the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act tucked into Obamacare:

“But both the Congressional Budget Office and the chief actuary for the Medicare program have expressed misgivings. The Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, cited ‘a very serious risk:’ Adverse selection — sicker people signing up for the program and the healthier staying away — ‘would make the CLASS program unsustainable.’ He said that even beginning premiums would have to be $240 a month. Likewise, CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf warned that ‘the CLASS program could be subject to considerable financial risk in the future if it were unable to attract a sufficiently healthy group of enrollees.’”

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Tags: CLASS Act, trillion dollar deficits

More Broken Health Care Promises

New analysis confirms that the health care bills moving the House and Senate will break the many promises President Obama made to the American people. As the details of the legislation are exposed, it is no wonder that Americans are growing uneasy over the direction the legislation has taken.

The Chief Actuary for the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued an extensive analysis of the pending Reid bill and House-passed bill. The Lewin Group also released an analysis of the House and Senate bills. These reports provide a comprehensive overview and impact of the legislation. Here are a few important facts from the reports:

More Health Care Spending, Not Less
A key argument by the President and Congress for health care has been to bring health care spending down. However, both studies expose that instead of bring health care spending down, the House and Senate bills would increase health care spending. (more…)

Tags: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, higher insurance premiums, trillion dollar deficits

The Three Senators Who Could Save You From Government-Run Health Care

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) may have announced that he expects to vote for Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) health bill this afternoon, but that leaves Reid with just 59 votes. He needs to get all three of the following holdouts to sign on the dotted line by Christmas:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)
As we have thoroughly documented before, there are nearly two dozen abortion funding prohibitions in current federal law that reflect two basic principles: 1) that, except in situations involving the life of the mother, rape and incest, the federal government will not pay for or reimburse for abortions under federal programs like Medicaid; and 2) that, with the same exceptions listed above, the federal government will not subsidize insurance plans that offer coverage for abortion. This is why the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB), military insurance through TRICARE, and the Indian Health Service do not cover abortion unless the mother’s life is at risk.

Reid’s health bill would change all that, forcing Americans to subsidize elective abortions for the first time in more than 30 years. Nelson told Face the Nation this Sunday: “I still have the unique issue of abortion. I’ve said I can’t support the bill with the abortion language that’s there.” (more…)

Tags: Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Sen. Ben Nelson, Sen. Claire McCaskill, Sen. James Webb, taxpayer-funded abortions, trillion dollar deficits

Video: Baucus Admits Obamacare Costs $2.5 Trillion

When President Barack Obama made his most recent big health care speech in September, he promised the American people his plan would cost only $900 billion. It took almost three months, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) finally produced a bill that CBO was willing to score at $848 billion. Problem is, the bill is filled with so many gimmicks that nobody believes that $848 billion score is the true cost of the bill. And yesterday on the Senate floor, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) actually admitted it. Watch:

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Tags: Max Baucus, Obama Health Care Plan, trillion dollar deficits

Reid Health Bill Raises Premiums

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new report detailing why individuals who purchase insurance in the non-group market would see much higher premiums in 2016 under Obamacare, than they would under current law. On average, those in large-group employer-sponsored plans would see their premiums remain flat. But this is an average of two subgroups that hides major losses by millions of Americans: 1) employees with generous coverage would see benefits cut due to the tax on high-value plans, and 2) employees with pared-down plans would see their premiums increase due to increased coverage mandates and taxes on medical devices and insurers that would be passed on to employees.

CBO assumes that large group plans will shift some of their older, sicker workers to the non-group market. Approximately one-fifth of the non-group market will consist of workers who formerly had insurance through their employer. This “crowding out” occurs as government subsidized plans displace private insurance. By shifting these high-cost workers to the non-group market, group plans can offset the higher taxes under Senator Reid’s plan and thus keep premiums flat for insurance purchasers. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, higher health care costs, higher insurance premiums, individual mandates, Obama Health Care Plan, trillion dollar deficits

Obamacare Hurts the Young

After noting that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending totaled $1.3 trillion, 43 percent of federal spending and more than twice military spending, in 2008, the Washington Post‘s Robert Samuelson turns to Obamacare:

Now comes the House-passed health-care “reform” bill that, amazingly, would extract more subsidies from the young. It mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of that for younger Americans. That’s much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old. Spending for those age 60 to 64 is four to five times greater than those 18 to 24. So, the young would overpay for insurance that — under the House bill — people must buy: Twenty- and thirtysomethings would subsidize premiums for fifty-and sixtysomethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.) (more…)

Tags: Obama Health Care Plan, trillion dollar deficits

The Senate Health Bill: True Cost is $4.9 Trillion

As we mentioned this morning, nobody believes that Congress will follow through on the health care spending cuts used to help pay for the Reid Health Bill. At NRO, Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow James Capretta combs through the CBO report and delivers a true price tag for the Reid Bill:

So, here’s the bottom line. On paper, the Reid plan plus the “doc fix” would increase total federal spending by about $4.9 trillion over 20 years. Senate Democrats would resort to bracket creep and other tax hikes to raise $2.2 trillion over the same period. The balance would be made up with spending reductions, mainly in Medicare, that no one believes can be sustained, and in any event do not constitute “health reform.” In other words, it’s a tax-and-spend bill of the highest order. And only the spending is certain to happen.

Tags: doc fix, Harry Reid, Medicare, Obama Health Care Plan, trillion dollar deficits

The Senate Health Bill: The True Costs Are Unknown

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled his 2,074 page health care bill with claims that the massive measure falls under the $900 billion cost threshold promised by the President.

To put it charitably, the truth is more complicated. The bill depends on budget gimmicks and unrealistic assumptions and projected savings to reach this goal over the 10 year budget window.

Consider the four most outrageous “Budget Tricks”. By its construction, the bill:

• Excludes the Costly “Doctor Fix”. Like the House bill, the Senate bill conveniently ignores the over $200 billion price tag associated with stopping the unavoidable cuts to physicians under the Medicare program. Separating the health care bill like this enables Senator Reid to claim his bill will reduce the deficit. However, in a letter released today, CBO estimates that combining the House bill (H.R. 3961) with the “Dr. Fix” bill (H.R. 3962) would actually “add $89 billion to budget deficits over the 2010–2019 period.” (more…)

Tags: CLASS Act, Congressional Budget Office, doc fix, Medicare, Obama Health Care Plan, trillion dollar deficits

The Five Flaws of the Reid Health Bill

We’re still pouring over Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) just released health care overhaul, but the major outlines of the bill are no different than the policy train wreck the House passed earlier this month.

The five major flaws of both the Pelosi and Reid Bills are:

1. A New Public Plan. Both the House and Senate bills would create a new government-run health care plan — a so-called public plan — intended to “compete” with private insurers in a new health insurance exchange. The result: widespread erosion of private insurance and substantial consolidation of federal control over health care through the exchange. Congress is incapable of guaranteeing the American people a level playing field for competition between the government plans and private health plans. As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has recently certified, what many have already concluded, millions of Americans will lose their existing employer-based coverage. (more…)

Tags: double digit unemployment, employer mandates, individual mandates, Medicaid, Obama Health Care Plan, public option, trillion dollar deficits