Will the real 10 year cost of ObamaCare be over $6 trillion?

[Lurker]

The market works if the same person is that is receiving the goods is also paying for them. In a functional market, if one doctor charges too much, another doctor will charge less and patients will go to that doctor instead. The government doesn't step in and tell the doctor how much to charge; the market does.
But, right now, if I have health insurance, I go to the hospital and never even see a bill. I don't shop around, and I don't object if the doctor charges a lot. This disconnect causes problems.
The solution isn't clear to me -- but changing out my insurance company for the government is definitely NOT a good solution.

Hmm, when people go to doctors they have no idea in advance what tests and procedures will be done so there is little way to know what to expect as to costs. Of course a doctor could post a list of all his tests and procedures and their costs but that would turn out to be a pretty large list. Still, it would help.

Or the government could tell the doctor what to charge but I am sure you don't like that solution.

 

[Upchurch]

Yes, obviously some "conservatives" (if they even are) having fringe religious beliefs is exactly the same as the core governing officials of your party putting...

Wow. I call troll.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Hmm, when people go to doctors they have no idea in advance what tests and procedures will be done so there is little way to know what to expect as to costs. Of course a doctor could post a list of all his tests and procedures and their costs but that would turn out to be a pretty large list. Still, it would help.

Depending on the situation, the opportunity to shop around exists. Emergencies, certainly not, but tests, X-rays, surgery ordered by a doctor to be scheduled a few weeks out, sure.
Some friends of mine don't have health insurance. He ended up needing a pretty expensive procedure done. And, sure enough, they talked to a variety of surgeons at different hospitals within driving distance until they were confident that they found a trustworthy surgeon to do it at a more reasonable price.
They certainly would have never done that legwork if he'd been under insurance. Again, I'm not sure about the solution, but it seems that in both medical procedures and auto-repair, insurance has seriously jacked up prices.

 

[jimbob]

Apparently if I don't want the government to give them everything I want them to die.
Despite the fact that private charity is far more effective, forget that -- if we don't FORCE people to give their money to the poor, we're not being MORAL enough, right?
It doesn't occur to you that morality is about making decisions, not about stealing?

For a short while, I'll pretend that private charity is more effective than public money.

How much more effective is it:

The US is actually more generous than many other countries according to Wiki:

With a massive 1.67% of GDP.

Are you claiming that private charity could replace the public systems that currently absorb 14.8% (Wiki) of the US GDP?

Would charitable giving rise to accommodate this? If so it would be the first time in history, welfare states being founded because private charity wasn't effective enough.

Remember, the charitable route has been the default throughout history and was replaced by the welfare state, which works a lot better, even though no implementation is perfect.


Let's try something that had been shown to fail before.

 

[jimbob]

Depending on the situation, the opportunity to shop around exists. Emergencies, certainly not, but tests, X-rays, surgery ordered by a doctor to be scheduled a few weeks out, sure.
Some friends of mine don't have health insurance. He ended up needing a pretty expensive procedure done. And, sure enough, they talked to a variety of surgeons at different hospitals within driving distance until they were confident that they found a trustworthy surgeon to do it at a more reasonable price.
They certainly would have never done that legwork if he'd been under insurance. Again, I'm not sure about the solution, but it seems that in both medical procedures and auto-repair, insurance has seriously jacked up prices.

Modern healthcare is inherently expensive.

I am a semiconductor engineer, with no particular expertise in healthcare, but I can do simple sums that show how the costs can easily be high:


ETA: Minor typos in that post corrected:

Bump for Jerome...

The details please.

Will a general hospital in a large prosperous city magically be built on land that is cheap? If not how will the capital cost of a general hospital be reduced?

Will a 5-hour surgery not require a surgeon, anaesthetist, and supporting nurses? Will surgery currently requiring 5-hours in theatre, suddenly need less time?

Will the surgeon and anaesthetist spend a greater proportion of their working time in theatre? (Actually my rough calculation, completely unrealistically assumed that they spent 100% of their time in theatre). If this time is to be maximised by the free-market, how?

Aside: Does anyone have any figures for what proportion of a general surgeon's work is actually in theatre?​

Will the general surgeon, and anaesthetist accept lower wages, when their skills are still in demand?

Will the capital cost of the theatre be reduced? If so, how? Will it be depreciated over a longer time?

Why would the cost of medical equipment be reduced?

I have already asked these questions, or simlar ones, and your answers seem to say that you accept my calculations but in later posts deny their validity, why:

Originally Posted by JEROME DA GNOME
Quote:

Originally Posted by jimbob
Any specific examples?

The current problems in the American health-care system.

Quote:

Quote:
In a deregulated market, will economies of scale suddenly vanish?

Nope.

Quote:

Quote:
Will the capital cost and depreciation of medical equipmens suddenly reduse?

Nope.

Quote:

Quote:
Will medical treatment and diagnosis suddenly not need highly qualified workers? Will highly qualified workers, in a field where there is demand for their services suddenly not command high wages?

Nope and nope.

Quote:

Quote:
Will large hospitals not be needed, or will the capital cost of the hospital also not need to be covered? Will the land value of new hospitals vanish.

Nope and nope.

Quote:

Quote:
Without regulation, how do you protect against cartels?

Why should I protect against cartels?

Where are the costs going to be reduced. With specific examples (other than the free market pixie).

ETA: Here are my detailed calculations, hidden for brevity,

Please tell me which parts are not estimating the lowest plausible cost:

But they wouldn't make any money in selling inherently expensive treatment at below cost.

According to this the median net worth of a renting household was $4k in 2004 (if I am reading the data correctly)

How could a household with a net worth of that actually pay any more than $4k for anything? Especially as they are likely to be poor credit risks, so borrowing the money would be difficult.

Can we get the coronary healthcare cost below $4k?

5-hour bypass surgery: General surgeon with less than 1-year experience, $170k, Anaesthetist , less than 1-year experience, median salary $145k.

Both work 60 hour weeks for 50 weeks a year. This means that their combined equivalent hourly rate is $105/hour.

Now they are not performing surgery all of that time, so the actual money that the they are paid as an hourly rate whilst in theatre has to be higher.

As well as the two highly-skilled doctors, you need support staff, (in one photo, the team seemed to be four people), so that makes two other wages that need paying directly during the surgery.

You also need to pay for the use of the theatre, and expensive equipment, say $3million, depreciated over 5-years, when the equipment is in yse 52 weeks per year, gives a theatre cost of $11.5k/week. Now the theatre can't be in use all this time, there has to be preparation, so (generously) we could also assume a 60-hour week for the theatre, which gives $190/hour just for the theatre. Actually it will cost a lot more than this, but I am making a conservative point.

So far just taking the cost of the theatre depreciation and the salaries of the surgeon and anaesthetist, both at the bottom of their respective pay scales, and both working 60-hr weeks in theatre, we get to $295/hour, or $14745 for the five-hour surgery.

You could probably double this for more realistic utilisation rates.

You now need to add in the cost of the other two team members, and of the provision of facilities, and of the proportion of the hospital capital cost that is being depreciated (say over 30 years), and the cost of the bed and accommodation over (three days) stay in hospital.

It soon costs more than the $4k that these people have.


Rolfe works in a free-market system providing medical care to animals, so I will ask him this next question:

If someone's pet needs treatment that costs more than they can afford, do you (as the representative of the free market pixie) reduce the price of the treatment, or does the animal not get any treatment?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Let's try something that had been shown to fail before.

Which is precisely what the Democrats are doing.

 

[jimbob]

What, and when?

Or are you referring to trying to control Afghanistan, which I will agree is probably doomed to failure.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Or are you referring to trying to control Afghanistan, which I will agree is probably doomed to failure.

On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Daily Show had a really hilarious mention of that.

 

[IchabodPlain]

Your ignorance of what has occurred actually proves my point -- liberals hide everything they can because, if it were all out in the open, they'd never get the American people to go along with what they want even for a moment.

Therein lies hyperbole.

Evidence?

The main proposals I've heard from conservatives have involved finding ways to make private health insurance affordable. Things like allowing small business to band together to negotiate for group rates, removing the state-by-state restrictions so that insurance providers are forced to compete nationally, and finding a way to make health care costs more transparent for consumers (so doctors can't charge more than the market bears). Essentially trying to make health care look more like other private industries that work properly, rather than making health care look like other government-run programs that work terribly.

What about the 40+ million uninsured? Are you supposing with these reforms that the problem will simply take care of itself? Why weren't these reforms pursued when republicans controlled congress?

 

[IchabodPlain]

The competition is there already, all this would do is all insurers would flock to the state with the most corporation friendly rules and base out of there. If you can ensure that the insurance companies still have to obey all laws of the state they sell in that this idea is ok. I'm not sure how much of a problem lack of competition is though.

Really? Seems President Obama disagreed with you

Obama stressed that a government-run plan would be one of many options for people seeking affordable care. He said it will promote more competition

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2009854197_apusobamapublicoption.html

"I support this effort, especially since it's aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost," Obama said

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/09/health.care/index.html

ETA: You'll note these are his comments regarding two different proposals - the first which included a public option, and the second which doesn't.

 

[joobz]

Why weren't these reforms pursued when republicans controlled congress?

An excellent question.

 

[BeAChooser]

And if I go to suburban schools I find that their test scores are comparale to our European and Japanese peers. Also, their graduation rate is MUCH higher than 50%, many topping 90%. Why are these public schools so successful?

Oh ... so because you think the public system takes good care of kids in suburban schools, it's ok that it fails to graduate half the students in the largest 50 school districts in the nation ... the ones in the (predominately democrat) urban areas? That makes public schooling a success in your mind?

 

[BeAChooser]

Quote:
LOL! You just named two programs that are both literally bankrupting the US. Do you know what the combined UNFUNDED debt of those programs is? Over 70 TRILLION dollars

70 Trillion? I don't think you are on base here.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba662

 

[BeAChooser]

Nobody is interested in your infinite time projections and extrapolating those results over teh next 60 years.

The link I just supplied you indicates that SS and Medicare will consume the ENTIRE Federal Budget by 2050. Just 40 years from now. That's not an infinite timeline. It's the retirement time for many paying into the systems right now.

That is not honest accounting.

No Lurker, dishonest accounting is what Obama and the democrats are doing now ... assuring their constituents there's such a thing as a free lunch. When there is no such thing. The bill will eventually come due. The fact that the liberals who pushed and are pushing these sorts of programs into law have excluded themselves from the programs doesn't mean the bill won't come due. The fact they will be old and retired (or even in the grave) by the time the bill comes due doesn't change the fact that it WILL come due, either. TANSTAAFL. It's a law of nature.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No Lurker, dishonest accounting is what Obama and the democrats are doing now

Obama and the Democrats aren't doing the accounting at all. The CBO does that.

... assuring their constituents there's such a thing as a free lunch.

No one is making that claim. The claim is that the new costs are offset by new revenues and the end result is a net reduction of the federal deficit over the first 10 years.

When there is no such thing. The bill will eventually come due. The fact that the liberals who pushed and are pushing these sorts of programs into law have excluded themselves from the programs doesn't mean the bill won't come due. The fact they will be old and retired (or even in the grave) by the time the bill comes due doesn't change the fact that it WILL come due, either. TANSTAAFL. It's a law of nature.

Since you've resurrected the thread, perhaps you'll respond to the questions I've been asking all along. . .

How exactly is a premium paid to a private insurance company a tax?

And if it's a tax (which it's not) how does it serve to increase the cost to the federal budget rather than reduce it?

Also, how exactly is it a gimmick to give a 10 year estimate of the impact on the federal budget? (The estimate gave numbers for each year, and for the two five year increments and totals for the entire 10 years, so it's not like they *onely* gave a single figure for the entire 10 year period.) Is a 10 year estimate an unusual thing to do for a large piece of legislation? How reliable would it be to make estimates further into the future? How far into the future is it reasonable to make estimates? (I believe you suggested earlier that the CBO ought give estimates for as long as the law is anticipated to remain in effect. Since that would be indefinitely, you pretty much have to draw the line somewhere.)

And why do you think the CBO is partisan or conspiring to misrepresent the effect on the budget of the proposed health insurance reform bill? (Interesting note: the current CBO director, Douglas Elmendorf, was on the CBO team that contributed to the failure of Clinton's healthcare reform proposal by concluding that it would cost much than Clinton said.)

 

[BeAChooser]

And why do you think the CBO is partisan or conspiring to misrepresent the effect on the budget of the proposed health insurance reform bill?

LOL! I've never suggested the CBO estimates are accurate nor have I suggested that the CBO is partisan or that the CBO is conspiring to misrepresent the result of the health care bill. I think their estimates are likely little less partisan than those coming out of the Whitehouse budget office (that's why they tend to be higher). But they are also likely to be nothing more than lower bound estimates themselves, for much the same reasons other government cost estimating bodies in the past have mostly put out what amounted to nothing more than lower bound estimates. Often, very inaccurate ones. For example ...

http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/capitol-comment-432

When considering a piece of legislation, Congress often stresses the importance of the "score" or cost estimate that government agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) give the bill. But how accurate have past government estimates been? In this paper, FreedomWorks Foundation looks at the government’s track record when it comes to estimating the cost of major legislation. We find that although the score is important, it should at best be considered the very least that a given bill may cost. At worst, estimates have been up to 2,600% higher than the actual cost of legislation. ... snip ...

In fact, the current CBO score has already come under fire because it accounts for 10 years of tax increases but only 6 years of full implementation of the program. It has been estimated that the 10 year cost of full implementation from 2014-2023 is closer to $2.5 trillion and even this figure lacks the unfunded mandates that, in the similar case of Massachusetts, accounts for 60 percent of health reform costs.

PRIOR ESTIMATES:

... snip ...

In the case of the Medicare Program, the government estimate was off by over 816%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $7.74 trillion.

... snip ...

In the case of the Medicare Part A, the government estimate was off by 165%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $2.24 trillion.

... snip ...

In the case of the Medicare Home Care Benefit, the government estimate was off by 150%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $2.1 trillion.

... snip ...

In the case of Social Security pay outs, the government estimate was off by a massive 2,600%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $22.89 trillion.

... snip ...

In the case of the ESRD Program, the government estimate was off by 129%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $1.94 trillion.

... snip ...

In the case of the Medicaid DHS Program, the government estimate was off by 1,600%. If the CBO estimate for the Senate health care bill is off by the same percentage, then the price of reform may be as high as $14.4 trillion.

And how accurate has the CBO been in its cost estimates? Look at a recent example. The CBO said it would cost $25 billion to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It also said that the chance that losses would exceed $100 billion was less than 5 percent. Last month, it said total costs would likely top $300 billion. In other words, it was off by more than a factor of 10.

And here is the reason they may be no more accurate than past estimators ...

http://commentarama.blogspot.com/2009/10/dont-believe-cbo-health-care-cost.html

The CBO does not do independent work. When Congress presents the CBO with a bill, the Congress also includes a list of assumptions. In this instance, for example, those assumptions include expected tax increases, magic cost savings from improved health, and spending cuts that will never happen -- unless you believe they really are going to cut Medicare payments in half.

The CBO does not determine whether or not the tax increases, spending cuts or cost savings are real. It just plugs them into its scoring model and spits out a total cost for the bill. Thus, while the score may be accurate for what is presented, the real question is how accurate are the assumptions. In programming speak, this is called garbage in, garbage out.

Joe, why don't you just be honest and admit that the CBO really doesn't have any better handle on what programs will really cost over the long haul than any of the previous government bodies that estimated costs. And they all did very badly. And why don't you just admit that the CBO is encumbered with some of the same problems that prevented previous government efforts at cost estimates from being accurate. One problem is that the CBO must evaluate the cost based on assumptions provided by Congress. For example, the Baucus billl has a Medicare sustainable growth rate, which sets the rates doctors are paid by Medicare and it assumes it will drop 25% in 2011. But any skeptic worthy of the name doesn't really believe that will happen. Yet the CBO must use that assumption in scoring the bill. Garbage in, Garbage out.

http://reason.org/news/show/the-gatekeeper

Testifying to Congress in 2002 about the agency’s budget projections, former CBO chief Rudolph Penner was blunt: “No one forecasts anything very well. That is true whether one looks at pundits forecasting the course of the war in Afghanistan, demographers forecasting worldwide birth rates, or pollsters forecasting the French presidential election.” He was equally candid in his assessment of the CBO’s work. “I recently studied the history of errors,” he said, “and I would like to submit my results for the record. They are pretty discouraging.”

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

LOL! I've never suggested the CBO estimates are accurate nor have I suggested that the CBO is partisan or that the CBO is conspiring to misrepresent the result of the health care bill.

Indeed you have done exactly that. Do you want me to quote how many times you used the phrase "the CBO and the Democrats" as if the two were somehow interchangeable?

You also suggested that someone who redefined "is" was in control. Any reasonable person would take that to be a reference to Bill Clinton, but when I asked you claimed it was about me (even though I have never attempted to redefine "is" and I am not even remotely an influence on the CBO).

Joe, why don't you just be honest and admit that the CBO really doesn't have any better handle on what programs will really cost over the long haul than any of the previous government bodies that estimated costs. And they all did very badly.

I certainly admit that predicting what the economy will do is an uncertain business.

However, I'd like you to return to the topic of the thread you started. You alleged that this method was a gimmick or a trick motivated by partisanship to skew the numbers. You've failed utterly to make your case.

You repeated the claim that healthcare premiums paid to private insurance companies should be counted as a federal tax. You also said that that amount of money should then be added to rather than subtracted from the net effect of this bill on the federal budget, which makes no sense if you count this money as a tax.

 

[johnny karate]

LOL! I've never suggested the CBO estimates are accurate...

Joe, why don't you just be honest and admit that the CBO really doesn't have any better handle on what programs will really cost over the long haul than any of the previous government bodies that estimated costs. And they all did very badly. And why don't you just admit that the CBO is encumbered with some of the same problems that prevented previous government efforts at cost estimates from being accurate. One problem is that the CBO must evaluate the cost based on assumptions provided by Congress. For example, the Baucus billl has a Medicare sustainable growth rate, which sets the rates doctors are paid by Medicare and it assumes it will drop 25% in 2011. But any skeptic worthy of the name doesn't really believe that will happen. Yet the CBO must use that assumption in scoring the bill. Garbage in, Garbage out.

If you truly believe this, then why have you previously cited a CBO estimate to support your argument?

 

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
LOL! I've never suggested the CBO estimates are accurate nor have I suggested that the CBO is partisan or that the CBO is conspiring to misrepresent the result of the health care bill.

Indeed you have done exactly that. Do you want me to quote how many times you used the phrase "the CBO and the Democrats" as if the two were somehow interchangeable?

LOL! Yeah. Go ahead. Put up or shut up. I bet you'll be hard pressed to find an instance where I used the phrase "the CBO and the democrats". And while we wait for you to respond, let me offer our audience some statements that I actually have made about the CBO and democrats the past few months:

Example 1:

I'm not calling Obama a liar for a faulty forecast.

I'm calling him a liar (or totally incompetent) because he claimed his programs reduced a predicted 10 year additional debt from $9.3 trillion to $7.1 trillion, when the facts clearly show that the $9.3 trillion figure he cited came from a CBO estimate of added debt that included the effect of his programs and from a CBO report which clearly stated that had Obama done nothing (i.e., left things "under current law") the additional debt would have only been $4.4 trillion dollars, not $9.3 trillion.

... snip ...

In short, the facts clearly show that Obama (and his staff) knew or should have known when he made that speech that his programs didn't reduce the predicted debt by $2.2 trillion as claimed, but rather increased the predicted debt by about $5 trillion dollars. In order to claim what he did and not be a liar, he would also have had to not read much of the mainstream media which did indeed report what the CBO said. And if you add in other of his spending programs not included in the CBO's March estimate, his programs have actually increased the predicted 10 year debt by about $6.5 trillion dollars (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123871911466984927.html ) ... a whopping $8.5 trillion dollar mistake or lie.

Why is this so hard for you folks to understand? Even a fourth grader should be able to read and understand the CBO report I linked, and see the dishonesty or incompetence in what Obama claimed in his health-care press conference speech in that regard.

... snip ...

And by the way, I can only wonder what the CBO's estimate of the 10 year debt increase will be this week. Bet it goes up from their $9.3 trillion figure. Oh ... guess what. They released their latest estimate ... today. And here's what they concluded:

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/

CBO released updated economic and budget projections today, showing baseline (i.e., current law) budget deficits of about $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year that ends on September 30 and roughly $7.1 trillion for the 2010-2019 period. That 10-year total is about $2.7 trillion higher than the baseline projection CBO published in March 2009.

So in other words, the CBO is now saying the added 10 year debt estimate, including the effect of Obama's programs, is about $9.3 + $2.7 = $12.0 trillion dollars ... not the $9 trillion the Obama administration now claims.

And continuing from the above CBO director's blog:

As noted in our report, about half of that revision is attributable to legislation enacted since March (primarily from extrapolating the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009), while the other half stems from technical factors and updates to our economic forecast.

which means that as a result of Obama's programs, the cumulative additional debt over the next 10 years due to Obama's programs will be about $5 trillion (the March estimate) + $1.35 trillion (half the $2.7 trillion) or, in other words, $6.3 trillion dollars, confirming what the Wall Street Journal article I linked above said about the actual increase in the debt due to Obama's programs (in stark contrast to what Obama claimed).

Example 2:

The Obama adminstration must be aware of the work the CBO has done on the budget and debt. If they aren't, then they are totally incompetent. They must be aware that the CBO reported in March (http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cach...rent+law+assumptions&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us ) that because of Obama's budget, the 10 year debt would increase $9.3 trillion dollars instead of the $4.4 trillion it would have been "under current law assumptions" (in other words, if they'd left well enough alone). So clearly ... if they read the CBO report (and if they didn't, they are totally incompetent), they either didn't understand what they read (which would also make them totally incompetent ) or they lied to the public when Obama claimed (in a speech that was presumably vetted by much of his staff) that his programs would reduce the debt $2.2 trillion from what it would have been had they done nothing (in which case, they claimed the deficit would have been $9.3 trillion dollars).

This really isn't rocket science. It's a straight forward, verifiable set of facts. Either Obama and his staff didn't read the CBO March report (which would make them incompetent), didn't understand the CBO March report (which would make them incompetent) or lied about the facts stated in the CBO March report.

Example 3:

Obama's claim that the deficit would have been $9.3 trillion had we done nothing is utter rubbish. The March Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projection of Obama's budget (http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cach...rent+law+assumptions&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us ) stated that the cumulative 10 year deficit "under the current-law assumptions" was $4.4 trillion, not $9.3 trillion as Obama claimed (see page 11 of that link). The $9.3 trillion figure was what the CBO projected the deficit would be WITH Obama's changes. In other words, as the CBO reports states "As estimated by CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, the President's proposals would add $4.8 trillion to the baseline deficits over the 2010-2019 period."

Furthermore, the $7.1 trillion dollar figure mentioned by Obama comes not from reductions off a $9.3 trillion baseline, but is simply the deficit estimate made by the WhiteHouse to which the $9.3 trillion dollar CBO projection is directly comparable. In other words, the Obama Whitehouse has on even rosier colored glasses than the CBO (and yes, the CBO estimate makes some assumptions that may not come true and, if not, would result in even higher deficits).

So contrary to Obama's claim, the cumulative deficit over 10 years, thanks to Obama's tinkering, is projected by the CBO (that's an independent government agency tasked with giving politically independent estimates) to be almost $5 trillion more than "if we had done nothing", not $2.2 trillion less. It's a $7 trillion dollar mistake.

Now I see no suggestion that the CBO and democrats are "interchangeable" or that the CBO is in the pocket of the democrats in the above? Quite the contrary.

In fact, here is a comment Corsair115 made in one of the threads where CBO and Whitehouse cost estimates were being discussed:

The very first thing that comes to mind for me is this: What is the track record for accuracy of the CBO and White House when it comes to making budgetary projections ten years into the future? Unless either or both have some measure of accuracy when it comes to making such long-term predictions, then the predictions are essentially meaningless. Ten years is a long time, and a lot can change between then and now.

And my response to him was this (note the portions I bolded):

The fact that they both indicate similar deficits (and other entities have also made predictions that were comparable) gives them some credibility. And whether you like it or not, we still have to base our decisions about the future on "something" and CBO predictions are about the best we have. By the way, I think they've tended to underestimate future deficits. And these are probably no exception.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/913 "Even CBO Deficit Projections Optimistic"

http://www.ombwatch.org/node/2248 "CBO’s Reduced Deficit Projections Mislead"

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1530 "DEFICIT PICTURE GRIMMER THAN NEW CBO PROJECTIONS SUGGEST"

That looks like I've been saying exactly what I claimed ... that the CBO estimates are inaccurate and underestimates ... and there is no suggestion on my part that the CBO is in the democrat's pockets or interchangeable. So it looks like you're not being accurate about what I've actually stated. And it's not the first time, either, Joe.

You also suggested that someone who redefined "is" was in control. Any reasonable person would take that to be a reference to Bill Clinton, but when I asked you claimed it was about me

I suggest you go back and TRY to understand what I actually wrote.

 

[IchabodPlain]

LOL! Yeah. Go ahead. Put up or shut up. I bet you'll be hard pressed to find an instance where I used the phrase "the CBO and the democrats"

See, the thing about lying on a forum is...

Post 43:

adjusting for two gimmicks in the democrat/CBO *analysis*...snip...cost of Obamacare is even more than 6 times the value democrats and the CBO have claimed it will be.

Post 53:

so the CBO and democrat's accounting trick is giving a false impression

ETA: So, what was the bet? Do I win anything?