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

[BeAChooser]

So nobody at the CBO was lying.

I didn't accuse anyone at the CBO of lying. But there sure is the appearance that they withheld this memo until after the 60 votes were assured.

Here's the final sentence--the one your story is talking about:

Quote:
To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

I think it's pointing out that this increased savings in the HI trust fund should not be counted as a savings in the general federal budget. I don't think the CBO is saying that that's what they did on their previous report.

You think? You don't think?

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/7032

Republicans already are screaming loudly about the CBO letter.
Their claim is that proposed cuts in Medicare to help pay for new health care service will add to the deficit -- not reduce it as Democrats say. They say the bill "double-counts" the savings, which magically reduces the measure's effect on future deficits.

The trouble for Democrats is that the GOP is backed up this time by the words of CBO Director Doug Elmendorf.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-r...te-health-reform-bill-wont-help-medicare.html

The Congressional Budget Office cast doubt Wednesday on claims that the healthcare bill currently before the United States Senate would help Medicare remain solvent.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/23/cbo-you-cant-spend-the-same-dollars-twice/

The new bill from Harry Reid on ObamaCare asserts that the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare can simultaneously be counted as savings for future Medicare outlays while funding all of the expenses of covering millions of uninsured immediately. Sen. Jeff Sessions asked the CBO if Reid could actually use the same dollars twice for two separate purposes at two separate times. The answer is, unsurprisingly, no

... snip ...

This punches a huge hole in two arguments from Democrats. First, they have assured people that cutting $500 billion from Medicare will only cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” which certainly could have been addressed without overhauling the nation’s health-care market. They insist that people will not see a reduction in benefits in the future in Medicare, and that these cuts strengthen the system for the future. The CBO’s letter shows that cuts to the budget will have to result in cuts to the system and benefits if Congress intends on using the money to pay for other efforts.

The second argument to die on this report is the supposed deficit neutrality of ObamaCare. When people start seeing their benefits reduced, Congress will almost certainly start rescinding the cuts — which is why Reid tried pre-empting that option by putting IMAB decisions out of reach. Congress will wind up spending money on both restoring the cuts and the coverage that got funded by them, which will create a deficit-spending explosion, and that assumes that the bill wouldn’t have created that anyway.

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/

CBO has been asked for additional information about the projected effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the pending health care reform legislation, on the federal budget and on the balance in the Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, from which Medicare Part A benefits are paid. Specifically, CBO has been asked whether the reductions in projected Part A outlays and increases in projected HI revenues under the legislation can provide additional resources to pay future Medicare benefits while simultaneously providing resources to pay for new programs outside of Medicare. Our answer is basically no.

Ergo ... the democrats have been lying.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Well, DA, it just seemed to me you were calling the reported quote from CBO Director Doug Elmendorf "half baked garbage".

You're wrong about a lot of things, aren't you?

I'm relieved to hear you weren't doing that. In which case, you must also accept the fact that Elmendorf is in effect saying Obama was dishonest in claiming (after the 60 votes were assured through coercion and bribery) that "This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program."

"Must"? I am under no obligation to participate in your delusions.

By the way, have you actually read the memo that conservatives are so industriously lying about?

 

[Dr Adequate]

I didn't accuse anyone at the CBO of lying. But there sure is the appearance that they withheld this memo until after the 60 votes were assured.



You think? You don't think?

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/7032



http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-r...te-health-reform-bill-wont-help-medicare.html



http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/23/cbo-you-cant-spend-the-same-dollars-twice/



http://cboblog.cbo.gov/



Ergo ... the democrats have been lying.

I wonder ... just out of interest ... when was the last time you posted something that was true?

Can you remember?

 

[McHrozni]

Hm, the vote passed. All 60 democrats voted in favor, 39 republicans voted against and 1 abstained. Considering this was a bill from a man who styled himself as the great bipartisan unifier, I believe I'll file it under "Pyrrhic victory" for now.

McHrozni

 

[johnny karate]

False, Johnny. My post to you (#206) quoted and was in response to your post #203, which only stated this... which says nothing about the Iraq War and does indeed mention and compare the Obama administration's interpretation of the CBO report. And that post and thread does indeed prove that the Obama administration, regardless of whether the CBO analysis is accurate or not, was either incapable of understanding what the CBO report stated or deliberately misrepresented what it said inorder to promote its nationalized health care agenda.

I don't want derail this thread any further by arguing about another thread, but suffice it to say the strongest argument you could make is that the Obama administration used different estimates than the CBO report, as opposed to your baseless claim they willfully misrepresented it. To make your case, you'd need to quote Obama saying "According to the CBO..." and then offering information not in the report he's referencing.

Either way, you are still using a CBO estimate as a given fact in that thread, and you're arguing that the CBO is incapable of giving accurate estimates in this thread.

So I ask you again, why do you cite the CBO as a source in one thread, but then claim they are an unreliable source in another?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So I ask you again, why do you cite the CBO as a source in one thread, but then claim they are an unreliable source in another?

I think at least part of what he's doing is pointing out that all forecasts are uncertain. That's why I think his CT about the CBO is bogus (since the CBO estimate is way better than what he offered--the nonsense the Cato Institute put out in which premiums paid to private companies are considered as taxes and then those "taxes" are subtracted from rather than added to the federal budget or added to the cost rather than to revenue).


Also the point you've been making that BaC relies on CBO numbers when it suits him, but also claims their numbers are unreliable.

 

[BeAChooser]

I don't want derail this thread any further by arguing about another thread, but suffice it to say the strongest argument you could make is that the Obama administration used different estimates than the CBO report, as opposed to your baseless claim they willfully misrepresented it.

You are again misrepresenting what argument I made, the evidence I provided to support that argument, and the conclusions that I said one could draw ... but I'll leave it at that since readers need only check out the various links I posted on this thread and the one you posted to see that's true.

 

[johnny karate]

I'm content to leave that particular point of contention for others to decide.

But you're still avoiding the central issue. Why do you accept CBO estimates in one thread but reject them in another?

 

[BeAChooser]

Why do you accept CBO estimates in one thread but reject them in another?

There you go again ... misrepresenting what I have said about CBO estimates on the various threads. I have repeatedly stated that CBO estimates are at best lower bounds on cost. I only reject those who claim they are precise estimates of what will eventually be the actual costs. History shows (I listed some of it earlier) that government estimates (like the CBOs) which are based on information and assumptions Congress provides and which have the limitations that even the CBO methods still have, tend to significantly underestimate the eventual true costs of social programs. Even the CBO admits that their estimates are highly uncertain. Democrats are leading us off a cliff by misrepresenting to the public what the CBO has actually said and concluded. Don't say you weren't warned when they start digging in your pockets to pay for massive cost overruns to support this socialist boondoggle.

 

[johnny karate]

BAC, do you think the CBO offers reliable budgetary estimations? Yes or no.

 

[BeAChooser]

BAC, do you think the CBO offers reliable budgetary estimations? Yes or no.

Take the cotton out of your ears, johnny. The CBO offers lower bound estimates and given that they seem to always be higher than the Obama Whitehouse's estimates, at least that makes them more reliable than the Obama Whitehouse's estimates. But that doesn't mean they are reliable in any absolute sense because very few cost estimates by government agencies end up predicting the eventual cost of programs with any degree of precision. As noted, they often underpredict such costs by factors and even orders of magnitude.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Democrats are leading us off a cliff by misrepresenting to the public what the CBO has actually said and concluded.

But this is not actually true, is it?

Face reality. Read the frickin' memo.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

BaC, back to the topic of this thread. Do you still defend the idea of counting premiums paid to private insurance companies as taxes? Do you still think it makes sense to count "taxes" as a decrease in revenue wrt the federal budget?

Or have you abandoned these positions?

 

[johnny karate]

Take the cotton out of your ears, johnny. The CBO offers lower bound estimates and given that they seem to always be higher than the Obama Whitehouse's estimates, at least that makes them more reliable than the Obama Whitehouse's estimates. But that doesn't mean they are reliable in any absolute sense because very few cost estimates by government agencies end up predicting the eventual cost of programs with any degree of precision. As noted, they often underpredict such costs by factors and even orders of magnitude.

Why did you not offer similar caveats about the unreliability of the CBO in threads where their estimates happened to support whatever argument you were making?

 

[BeAChooser]

Why did you not offer similar caveats about the unreliability of the CBO in threads where their estimates happened to support whatever argument you were making?

Come on johnny, why do you have such trouble understanding that a cost estimate can have both random (which is all people usually think about) and bias uncertainty? The inherent biases (because of the methodology) make citing CBO estimates in comparison to other estimates (like the Whitehouse's) useful decision making information in a discussion like this. And contrary to what you claim, as I noted earlier, when citing CBO estimates I did offer caveats about the uncertainty in CBO estimates, explicitly stating that the estimates were likely underestimates ... for all the reasons I cited above. My use of the CBO estimates was and is completely valid. Yours is not ... because you want folks to believe there is no bias uncertainty.

 

[johnny karate]

Come on johnny, why do you have such trouble understanding that a cost estimate can have both random (which is all people usually think about) and bias uncertainty? The inherent biases (because of the methodology) make citing CBO estimates in comparison to other estimates (like the Whitehouse's) useful decision making information in a discussion like this. And contrary to what you claim, as I noted earlier, when citing CBO estimates I did offer caveats about the uncertainty in CBO estimates, explicitly stating that the estimates were likely underestimates ... for all the reasons I cited above. My use of the CBO estimates was and is completely valid. Yours is not ... because you want folks to believe there is no bias uncertainty.

No, you don't. If they support your argument, you simply cite them as given fact.

Case in point:

So the current credit crunch may be another good reason not to just throw a trillion dollars at the economy at this time ... unless you want to waste it or have another agenda (and I think that's really what is going on with democrats).

In fact, I think the stimulus bill might actually make the credit crunch even worse. Because to pay that trillion, the government is going to have to borrow a trillion.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

Understand this ... the stimulus package is the same thing (buying things one can't afford) that led to the credit problem in the first place.

I don't see where you have offered any caveat regarding the reliability of the CBO estimates you reference. If I somehow missed it, kindly quote the relevant passage.

The only place I have seen you remark about the unreliability of the CBO is in this thread, where it just so happens that their estimates do not accord with the argument you're trying to make.

I defy you to prove otherwise.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Still evading the point of the thread you started, BaC?

How is that premiums paid to insurance companies are taxes?

And how is it that something considered to be "taxes" increases the cost to the federal budget?

 

[mhaze]

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/11/27/obamacares-cost-could-top-6-trillion/



Would a $5 trillion dollar difference in the real cost versus what we are being told will be the cost constitute a mistake or a lie on part of those claiming the cost will be $1 trillion over 10 years? I say the latter.

Of course, consider that 6 trillion/decade is 600B/year or 600B/300M people, $2000 per year per person or $8k for a family of four.

That's believable in a fairly efficient delivery system, which is not what we are talking about.

Now what did the lying liars claim it would cost?

 

[Eyeron]

There's no such thing as free. It's always somebody else paying for it through taxes.

 

[Tricky]

There's no such thing as free. It's always somebody else paying for it through taxes.

Do you believe that every cost to the US is measurable in taxes? Might there be other costs that aren't measured in dollars and cents?