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

mhaze said:
Yes, you can take this out of context and use it to support your reframing of the argument such that you can argue the subject which you would like to argue. But the article goes forward, in the section you left out, to say...

When we correct for both gimmicks, counting both on- and off-budget costs over the first 10 years of implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare reaches — I’m so sorry about this — $6.25 trillion.

"Total cost", is where the key number came from, the $6T. "Total cost", as the article says, "counting both on-and off-budget costs", is not just "addressing the CBO cost estimate", which you've improperly claimed.

That's the plan that you are arguing for, the $6 trillion dollar plan. Why are you trying to minimize it's cost? Why not just admit that you like every bit of that money your friends want to steal, and the more, the merrier?

Don't worry - it has yet to go through committee, so the cost will go up yet again.
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You're wrong. The figure is about the cost to the federal budget.

If it were the total cost in the way you're thinking (the cost to the nation), then $6 trillion over 10 years (what you say "Obamacare" would cost) would be a significant reduction in the total cost.

In 2007, our per-capita healthcare expenditure was over $6000; multiply that by 300 million, and you get an annual total cost of $1.6 trillion. Multiply that by 10 years--and that's ignoring the fact that we know under the status quo costs would continue to rise--and you get $16 trillion.

So if what you say is true, then "Obamacare" would represent a tremendous decrease in healthcare costs.


But the stuff in the OP really is about the cost to the federal budget. Again, the Cato Institute thinks it's a gimmick or a trick not to count premiums paid to private insurance companies as taxes. If you did count those as taxes, they would represent a decrease in the cost to the federal budget.

Also, if this were about the total cost the way you're thinking of it, what difference would it make whether you count the premiums paid as taxes or as premiums?
 
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BeAChooser said:
A little pork here, a little pork there. Buying votes is costly business. :D
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I conclude my rebuttal of JoetheJuggler's comments by simply quoting the final sentences from your link of the OP.
Beutler and other supporters of ObamaCare can react to this news in two ways. They can continue to deny the enormous cost of the legislation they support.
​
Continue to deny? Yep, we sure are seeing that.
Or they can question how President Obama’s health plan came to be so blessedly expensive, and how (and by whom) they were duped into thinking it wasn’t.
​
By whom were they duped?

By the lying liars, of course.:D
 
mhaze said:
I conclude my rebuttal of JoetheJuggler's comments by simply quoting the final sentences from your link of the OP.
Beutler and other supporters of ObamaCare can react to this news in two ways. They can continue to deny the enormous cost of the legislation they support.​
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But according to you, "Obamacare" will save us some $10 trillion in healthcare costs over ten years! (See my last post.)

I think you're confused on what these figures are about.​
 
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BeAChooser said:
LOL! Does this:
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.
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sound like I was dismissing the CBO healthcare cost estimate?
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It does when you follow it with this:
By the way, I think they've tended to underestimate future deficits. And these are probably no exception.
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in a thread where you've already cited a Republican-funded think tank as the arbiters of the "true cost".
 
johnny karate said:
It does when you follow it with this:

Quote:
By the way, I think they've tended to underestimate future deficits. And these are probably no exception.

in a thread where you've already cited a Republican-funded think tank as the arbiters of the "true cost".
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I didn't realize that this:

http://www.hsinetwork.com/

is a republican funded think tank. Now granted, their health care study was funded by the McCain campaign, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. Do you have a source that shows it to be in error and why? Because here is one that talks about their and other studies in some detail without finding fault: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Healthcare/wm2114.cfm . And according to this: http://reason.org/blog/show/sticker-shock-over-obamacare-p

Nor is the CBO likely to break its streak of low-ball predictions this time. In fact, according to Stephen T. Parente in the City Journal, the CBO estimate is off by - hold on to your wallets - about one trillion dollars! That means that ObamaCare might cost twice as much as the CBO claims -- or two trillion dollars.

Parente was John McCain's health care advisor so ObamaCare supporters are likely to dismiss his claims. But Parente is a principal of Health Systems Innovations that routinely provides health care estimates to both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. He is also director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute and an associate professor in the finance department at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota so there is reason to think that he knows what he is talking about.

His contention is that the CBO under-estimates the final price tag of both the House and Senate versions of ObamaCare because it under-estimates the number of people who will switch from a private to a public option. Like the Urban Institute - no bastion of right-wing misinformation on the issue -- Parente estimates that large and small employers would collectively dump roughly 40 million people on to the subsidized public option. But the CBO assumes that large employers would use the public plan only sparingly and that only 11 million people would move from private to public insurance.
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Here's a statement from Parente himself:

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0805sp.html

Over the last few months, my colleagues and I at the consulting firm Health Systems Innovations have provided cost estimates of health-care reform to both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, and we’ve posted these estimates on our website as well.
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So I fail to see why you dismiss their study conclusions out of hand. Looks to me like you are doing that based on YOUR politics. :D
 
I didn't dismiss the HSI study. I merely pointed out that you were dismissive of the CBO's estimates in favor of the HSI study.

The same way you were dismissive of the CBO's estimates in favor of the Cato Institute's study in this thread.

The same way you seem to always dismiss CBO estimates unless they happen to support your argument.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
You're wrong. The figure is about the cost to the federal budget.

If it were the total cost in the way you're thinking (the cost to the nation), then $6 trillion over 10 years (what you say "Obamacare" would cost) would be a significant reduction in the total cost.

In 2007, our per-capita healthcare expenditure was over $6000; multiply that by 300 million, and you get an annual total cost of $1.6 trillion. Multiply that by 10 years--and that's ignoring the fact that we know under the status quo costs would continue to rise--and you get $16 trillion.

So if what you say is true, then "Obamacare" would represent a tremendous decrease in healthcare costs. ....
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Your very own linky defeats your logic.
The sum of public and private expenditure (in purchasing power parity terms in US dollars), divided by the population. Health expenditure includes the provision of health services (preventive and curative), family planning activities, nutrition activities, and emergency aid designated for health....
​
Why is it that you'd omit the fact that your reference includes items not included in the Cato (or CBO) referenced study, and is therefore not comparable? Because doing so would support the lies that you support?

The ones from the lying liars?

JoeTheJuggler said:
You're wrong. The figure is about the cost to the federal budget........But the stuff in the OP really is about the cost to the federal budget....if this were about the total cost the way you're thinking of it....
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The discussion of this is over (on a factual basis, based on facts that have been presented). I assume you do not want to continue it on a fantasy basis?
 
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mhaze said:
Your very own linky defeats your logic.
The sum of public and private expenditure (in purchasing power parity terms in US dollars), divided by the population. Health expenditure includes the provision of health services (preventive and curative), family planning activities, nutrition activities, and emergency aid designated for health....
​
Click to expand...
Yes, I think we both understand what healthcare means, I think the issue is over what the "cost" in question means--that is who it pertains to.

Again, your position that it is not referring to the effect on the federal budget is wrong and inconsistent with even your own numbers. If it's the total cost that we as a nation pay, then $6 trillion over 10 years would be a tremendous (at least $10 trillion) reduction compared to the status quo.

ETA: You seem to keep missing this point. The $6 trillion "total cost" over 10 years that the Cato Institute or BaC favors is meant to be the cost of this bill to the federal budget. If it were the total cost to the nation, as you seem to think, it would represent a huge savings. Even the Democrats who support the bill aren't making that claim. They're saying overall it won't add to the deficit and is likely to provide a modest reduction over 10 years (and yes, the CBO gives the figures for each year, so there is no "gimmick" going on wrt the time span).

Leaky logic?

You're just wrong.

The CBO estimate* is about the effect of the bill on the federal budget. The stuff in the OP is complaining that the CBO didn't make that calculation correctly. (By wrongly insisting that premiums paid to private insurance companies ought be considered taxes. I've been pointing out that if you did consider them taxes, they should be counted as a reduction in the cost to the fed. At best, I suppose, you could consider them taxes collected from people and then paid out to the insurance companies, in which case their net effect on the budget would be zero. But you certainly can't construe them to increase the cost to the federal budget.)

*ETA: There are also the 2 later memos here and here regarding the effect on the Medicare trust fund. Nonetheless, these are still focussed on the effect of the bill on the federal budget.
 
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Here's the pertinent language from the CBO's 12-19 memo (my bolding):

CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the manager’s amendment would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion over the
2010-2019 period (see Table 1).
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It is this conclusion that BaC and the Cato Institute (and I suppose this HSI estimate--though I haven't read about that yet) are challenging.

The 12-20 CBO memo talks about the far less certain long-term effect (beyond the year 2019)--and revises its estimate of the impact on deficits after that time period (only wrt to an error in Medicare savings). Here's the pertinent language from that memo:

All told, CBO expects that the legislation, if enacted, would reduce federal budget deficits over the decade after 2019 relative to those projected under current law—with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP. In comparison, the extrapolations in the initial estimate implied a reduction in deficits in the 2020–2029 period that would be in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.
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Though I'm pretty sure the caveats that such long-range estimates have a great deal less certainty than do estimates for the first 10 years.
 
mhaze said:
Does not!
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You still think the "total cost" of "Obamacare" as in the total we as a nation pay for healthcare over 10 years is $6 trillion?

If so, then it's waaaay cheaper than the status quo!

I'm not so optimistic about the proposed healthcare reform bill that's likely to pass. I think it will have a modest effect at best on that cost.

The figure that's being argued about here is the cost to the federal budget. The net result is likely to be a slight reduction in the deficit.

If you think the "total cost" means what you're saying, you should be the most ardent supporter of this bill since it would save us about a trillion dollars every year!
 
BeAChooser said:
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? :rolleyes:
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You didn't answer my question. Why are the suburban public schools successful?

Also, can you explain why you said that private universities turn out better engineers than public ones when I posted that of the Top 20 Engineering Universities, 13 of them were public. Please advise.

Thanks!
 
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joobz said:
And what's the excuse for substandard schools in rural farm communities?
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Well it's certainly not where the bulk of the money distributed by predominately democrat-run school boards is going.

That's going to those big schools in the 50 largest school districts that are failing to graduate half their students.

:D
 
BeAChooser said:
Fewer democrat parents? :D
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Ah, so you agree that it has nothing to do with politics and has to do with the parentage of the kids. Very good then. So the fact that many inner city public city schools are failing is probably due to the failings of the parents. OK. If the parents were well educated and had a very active hand in their children's education, as they do in the suburbs, then we would see better results.

Glad we agree. Nothing to do with politics and everything to do with environment.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
You still think the "total cost" of "Obamacare" as in the total we as a nation pay for healthcare over 10 years is $6 trillion?

If so, then it's waaaay cheaper than the status quo!

I'm not so optimistic about the proposed healthcare reform bill that's likely to pass. I think it will have a modest effect at best on that cost.

The figure that's being argued about here is the cost to the federal budget. The net result is likely to be a slight reduction in the deficit.

If you think the "total cost" means what you're saying, you should be the most ardent supporter of this bill since it would save us about a trillion dollars every year!
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It's certainly plausible that under government run health care of JoeTheJuggler's Vision that a trillion dollars each year could be "saved".

Say at the cost of 3 Trillion dollars of health care not delivered. After all, people got by before medicines, heart transplants, emotional counseling, and chiropractice.

Government run medicine in Red China supplied bunches of "barefoot doctors".

And condoms.

Just repeat after me:

  • Backwards is forwards
  • sincerity is doubt
  • good is evil
  • doctors are dumber than doormats
  • the numbers, Joe will Juggle.
And remember:

Free Condoms!
 
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