FixHealthCarePolicy

Video: Paul Ryan Destroys Obamacare’s Deficit Reduction Claims

Yesterday at the Blair House health summit, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) directly challenged the White House’s deficit reduction claims. From the transcript:

“Look, we agree on the problem here, and the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff. Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare right now has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That’s $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents’ generation, our generation, our kids’ generation. Medicaid is growing at 21 percent this year. It’s suffocating state’s budgets. It’s adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it.”

“Now, you’re right to frame the debate on cost and health inflation. And in September when you spoke to us in the well of the House, you basically said — and I totally agree with this — ‘I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future.’” (more…)

Tags: budget reform, CLASS Act, deficits, doc fix, Medicare, ObamaCare, Ponzi scheme, Rep. Paul Ryan

Five Questions for Health Care Townhalls

From Long Island to Philadelphia to Austin, Texas, Democrats returning from Washington to host townhalls are getting an earful from constituents about their concerns over President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Despite the fact that all recent polls show that a majority of Americans do not support Obamacare, the left still has the audacity to claim that the concerned citizens showing up at these events are health insurance industry stooges.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told the Center for America Progress: “These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town hall meetings for visual impact on television.” But when actual journalists have reported on who is showing up at these events, they are telling a different story. Reporting on events in Pennsylvania and Texas, the New York Times describes the protests as “organized by loose-knit coalition of conservative voters and advocacy groups.”

This country deserves a respectful, honest debate about health care. And the hundreds of townhalls Members of Congress will be hosting across the country this August are just the place for that conversation to happen. Here are just five questions Americans should be pressing their elected leaders on over the coming month: (more…)

Tags: abortion, comparative effectiveness research, Congressional Budget Office, deficits, Douglas Elmendorf, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, Health and Human Services, Paul Krugman, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Dean Heller, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Rep. Patrick Tiberi, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Tom Coburn, townhall meetings

House Health Care Bill Yields $9.2 Trillion in Deficits

Members of Congress have been working frantically to bring the cost of the health care bill below $1 trillion, make it “deficit-neutral,” per the President’s instructions, and meet Blue Dogs’ expectations that it be “paid for.” As the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, so far they’ve had no such luck.

But the bigger problem is that in focusing on $1 trillion, Congress is missing the forest for the trees.

All the estimates they evaluate are 10-year figures, yet nationalized health insurance, if it passes, will likely be around much longer than that. Longer-term estimates must therefore be examined to determine whether future promised benefits will really be paid for.

Turns out, funds are insufficient to the tune of $9.2 trillion, according to the Joint Economic Committee’s 75-year costs estimate of the House bill.

That’s big, but when you add it to the existing unfunded promises–which exceed $45 trillion–that already exist in Social Security and Medicare, the House health bill makes an already unaffordable and unsustainable budget worse. In fact, the unfunded promises of the health bill are bigger than the Social Security shortfall alone.

Without nationalized health care, the amount of money that would be required from every American, today, to close our current fiscal gap equals $184,000. If $9.2 trillion in new debt is added, that figure would exceed $214,000–an additional $30,000 per person.

Unless you can afford to write a $214,000 check to the government today or want to pass the buck onto future generations, you have to ask yourself: Can America really afford national health care right now?

Tags: deficits, entitlements, health care, long-term budget, unfunded obligation