FixHealthCarePolicy

The Shameless Medicare Propaganda Continues

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued what it is calling a “report” on the supposed improvements to Medicare passed as part of Obamacare.

The first thing to note here is that this so-called “report” isn’t really a report at all. It provides no new information; it shouldn’t generate any news, as it contains no news. It’s just a rehash of administration talking points, half-truths, and deceptive arguments, repeated many times previously, based on cost estimates produced by the chief actuary of the Medicare program in April and by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March.

So why is HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius touting this so-called “report” four months after the law’s passage and scheduling a conference call about it with reporters? (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Medicare

CBO: Obamacare Unlikely to Reduce Spending on Health Care

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual long-term Budget Outlook, which provides a look at mandatory federal spending on health care after passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

One may have expected to see drastic changes after the passage of Obamacare. After all, this legislation was supposed to reduce costs and overall health spending. However, the CBO’s report highlights the unlikelihood that cost-containment strategies included in the new law will ever come to fruition.

In its projections, CBO looks at two scenarios. The extended-baseline scenario assumes that current law will occur as written. The second, more likely occurrence, is the alternative fiscal scenario, which makes realistic assumptions about the future behavior of lawmakers. For example, the extended-baseline scenario assumes that a 21 percent reduction to physician payments under Medicare will actually occur. But since its inception in 1997, these reductions have been suspended every year, known as the “doc fix.” Just days ago, Congress suspended the payment reductions for another six months, and you can be sure they will suspend it again when it expires in the future. The alternative fiscal scenario accounts for this. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, federal health spending, Medicare, ObamaCare, unsustainable

Side Effects: Obamacare Creates a Costly Drop in Employer Health Coverage

The President repeatedly promised that if you liked your health plan, you would be able to keep it. Nothing would change. Fat chance.

In fact, millions of Americans of Americans will lose or be transitioned out of their existing employer based health insurance. The official Actuary at HHS- who doesn’t speak for the Administration- said it would be 14 million. But a new report by former Director of the Congressional Budget Office Douglas Holtz-Eakin predicts it could be as high as 35 million. That kind of disruption comes at a high price: It’ll cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion more than previously estimated.

Why? Because Obamacare calls for lavish subsidies to help low- and middle-income Americans buy health insurance. Indeed, households earning up to four times the federal poverty level are eligible for subsidies. According to 2008 Census data, some 127 million Americans would qualify. Yet the official CBO analysis of Obamacare estimated only 19 million would get subsidies. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, employer mandate, firewall provision, Side Effects, subsidies, tax penalties

Obamacare’s Cooked Books and the “Doc Fix”

The Obama administration continues to insist (see this post from White House budget director Peter Orszag) that the recently enacted health-care law will reduce the federal budget deficit by $100 billion over ten years and by ten times that amount in the second decade of implementation. They cite the Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate for the final legislation to back their claims.

And it is undeniably true that CBO says the legislation, as written, would reduce the federal budget deficit by $124 billion over ten years from the health-related provisions of the new law.

But that’s not whole story about Obamacare’s budgetary implications — not by a long shot. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, cook the books, doc fix, entitlement expansion, Medicare, ObamaCare, Peter Orszag

Side Effects: Small Businesses Still Left Empty-Handed

One of the great promises of Obamacare, you’ll recall, was that it would give folks working in small businesses better access to affordable care. “It works for small business owners,” Nancy Pelosi announced, “providing access to affordable group rates and creating a tax credit for them to help them insure their employees.” This sounded like it would be a huge help, because small firms struggle to find affordable coverage for their workers.

Unfortunately, the Obamacare small-business tax credit just doesn’t get the job done, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small-business advocacy group. NFIB reports that provisions aimed at expanding small-business-sponsored coverage will have little real impact—though their cost will be all too real. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, Dr. Bob Graboyes, NFIB, ObamaCare, Side Effects, small businesses, tax credit

The Debt Commission and Obamacare

The president’s debt commission had its first meeting this week, and all of the talk was of getting serious about putting our fiscal house in order, with everything “on the table” for consideration.

There’s no arguing with the need to get serious. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the Obama budget were adopted in full, just the interest on the national debt would exceed $900 billion in 2020 and consume one out of every five dollars in federal revenue. To put that in perspective, in 2007, before the financial crisis hit with full force, interest payments on debt stood at $237 billion, or just 9 percent of total tax collections. A sudden and steep rise in the percentage of governmental revenue dedicated to servicing past excess consumption is a clear warning sign to lenders and credit-rating agencies that a country’s finances are approaching the point of no return.

Unfortunately, the timeline for taking corrective action may have shortened even in the past few weeks and days. What began as a slow-motion crumble of Greece’s economic house of cards is now threatening to become a serious global crisis. The flight from sovereign debt risk is now spreading to other vulnerable, highly leveraged countries, including Portugal, Ireland, and Spain. The implications for European economic recovery are ominous. And, if Europe’s economy slides backward again into a deep recession, no part of the global economy will be completely spared from the fallout, including the United States.

(more…)

Tags: "on the table", Congressional Budget Office, debt commission, massive spending, Medicare, ObamaCare

How the Left Really Plans to Pay for Obamacare

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), over half of President Barack Obama’s new $940 billion health care entitlement is paid for by price-fixing Medicare cuts. Never mind that the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says that these cuts would cause “roughly 20 percent” of Medicare providers to go bankrupt in Obamacare’s first 10 years. The CBO has to believe these cuts will happen because they are required, by law, to believe everything Congress tells them. The American people are not. So the American people ought to know that instead of cutting doctors’ Medicare reimbursement rates by 21% as required by law on April 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services froze payments at current levels until Congress could come back after Easter recess and rescind those cuts. Again. As they have done every year but one since the cuts were first enacted in 1997.

This doc fix is big enough that, if it had been included as a cost of Obamacare, it would have sent the President’s bill into the red all by itself. But the half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts used to fund the rest of Obamacare are a much bigger problem. Even if we assume they all go as planned, President Obama’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010; would run a $1.6 trillion deficit in 2010; and would leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion as late as 2020. Add on the half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts that, given Congress’ track record, the American people would be naive to think will ever happen, and the federal government is looking at a pile of new debt. (more…)

Tags: balance the budget, Congressional Budget Office, doc fix, health care entitlement, higher government spending, Medicare cuts, President Obama's budget, Value Added Tax, VAT

Obamacare’s Delusional Deficit Reduction Claims

Congressional leaders are gleefully reporting that the Congressional Budget Office score of their health care proposal released yesterday shows that their legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first ten years. Not so fast—consummate professionals though they are, CBO provides a projection based on assumptions about the future conduct of Congress that do not always represent reality.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, not exactly a supporter of the GOP, puts it this way: “…Democrats will be pointing to this preliminary CBO score as if it is engraved on stone tablets. Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance. This may come as a surprise, but I think the Republican argument is closer to correct. To crow, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that the package is “a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit reduction” is premature at best, delusional at worst.” (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, deficits, doc fix, double-counted savings, excise tax, Public Opinion, reconciliation bill

ObamaCare Will Break the Bank, Not Cut the Deficit

The White House and its congressional allies are trying to suggest that the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate proves that their health-care plan is fiscally responsible.

But, in fact, the latest CBO projections confirm — again — that the President’s health plan would pile more another unfinanced entitlement program on top of the unaffordable ones already on the federal books.

According to CBO, the new entitlement spending in the plan would cost $216 billion by 2019, and then increase by 8 percent every year thereafter. In other words, the President’s plan would stand up another health entitlement program that will grow much faster than the nation’s economy or revenue base. The changes the Democrats would make to the Senate-passed bill would make the entitlement program even more expensive. (more…)

Tags: Cadillac tax, Congressional Budget Office, deficits, double-counting, Medicare cuts, new entitlement spending, ObamaCare, President's proposal

Morning Bell: What the Senate Bill Would Do To America

Another day, another no-show for the Obamacare reconciliation bill. House Democrats were quick to shift blame to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with Rep. Robert Andrews telling The Hill that the delay “has been much more technical than substantive. … It’s not like what tax has to go or what spending has to go.” Which is an interesting claim, since Politico reported that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was summoned to the White House yesterday afternoon “to discuss a higher-than-expected excise tax on some health care plans.” In fact, Politico added: “A labor source said Trumka’s meeting would focus on the entire bill, not just the excise tax question.” Sounds like more than just technical details are still in flux.

But in reality, none of these discussions really matter. The reconciliation bill being drafted is nothing more than thin political cover for House Democrats who believe the Senate bill is terrible public policy but want to please their leadership and the President by voting for it anyway. As we detailed yesterday, there is no bill but the Senate bill. Once the House passes the Senate bill, the President will sign it. Game over. It has been almost three months since the Senate passed their bill in the dead of night on Christmas Eve. A review of just how terrible it really is, is in order:

New Middle-Class Taxes: Throughout his campaign, President Barack Obama promised he would not raise taxes on American households making less than $250,000. The Senate bill shatters that promise. For starters, just look at the reason Trumka went to the White House yesterday: the excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. This tax would overwhelmingly hit middle-class taxpayers. Taxes on prescription drugs, wheel chairs and other medical devices would also be passed on to all consumers, hitting the lower- and middle- classes the hardest. (more…)

Tags: Congressional Budget Office, deficits, excise tax, higher health costs, higher health premiums, middle class taxes, ObamaCare, reconciliation bill, unemployment