Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the CBO, penned an op-ed in the NYT yesterday, The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform, in which he points out that the CBO’s ten-year cost estimate of $950 billion and deficit reduction of $138 billion is an estimate of fantasy. The CBO can’t comment on the fictions in the bill before it. The current Obamacare bill will actually produce a deficit increase of $562 for the same reasons outlined by Paul Ryan. He uses words like, gimmicks, budgetary games, front loading costs without benefits, leaving costs out entirely, manipulates, slight of hand, unrealistic, and stolen.
“The stakes could not be higher. As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt……..The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.”
Holtz-Eakkin’s piece largely confirms a post by Cato’s Michael Tanner in NRO this weekend, Predictions; Reno Hayek members will recall that Michael spoke to us last year about this time. He reasonably prognosticates: One, that the bill will cost more than advertised not only because of the gimmicks and deceit but because all major government programs do. In ’65 Medicare was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990; it came in seven times higher at $67 billion. Two, insurance premiums will increase. The bill will do nothing to lessen the 200% increase, by CBO estimate. Three, quality of care will be worse. The bill will accelerate doctor retirements at the same time it adds patients to the system.
Scarier yet, four, the leftist will keep pushing for more. To quote Pelosi, “once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” in other words, this is the first step to single payer government healthcare. Five, Republicans won’t try to repeal it because they won’t be able to get the required veto proof majority in both houses or the presidency plus the filibuster proof Senate.
At a time when serious attention should be devoted to getting our fiscal house in order, by at a minimum avoiding the demographically certain failure of medicare, social security and medicaid, Obama has loaded the country’s future generation with a new middle class entitlement destine for the same future as those welfare programs. It will beget unsustainable debt, burdensome regulation, and big government growth and taxation which will detract from our future private economy. It is the greatest intergenerational immorality in modern times.