Health Care

[pattygreen 5]

And whose Chinese communist a$$ did bush kiss to fund the unnecessary Iraqi war? Just think of how that money could have been used to help our economy here at home and create jobs instead of killing 4000 soldiers. Or not borrowed at all and help reduce the debt.

It doesn't matter any more, that's already been done. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because Bush didn't do what was right doesn't make it okay for Obama to follow in his footsteps. I am sick and tired of hearing about what Bush did from you. It's like a little kid who does wrong and when questioned by his mom says, "but, jeffy did it too, he did even worse than me." (whine) Obama is doing his own share of spending, and it is much more than any president we have ever had!!!!

It doesn't matter anymore? :thumbup: This is typical conservative illogical thinking. Of course it matters because it is a BIG part of the current deficit that you neocons keep yapping about. And to make matter worse, it was totally unnecessary. Geez.

IT DOESN"T MATTER ANY MORE! It's in the past and it can't be changed. You can only work on the present and the future. And that's in Obama's hand now. So constantly going back to what Bush did and excusing Obama's deeds because "Bush did it" or "Bush did it even worse" is lame. Stop doing it.

[pattygreen 5]

Cleo's poet: Healthcare is paid for

Is that what you think?

[Cleo's Mom 257]

IT DOESN"T MATTER ANY MORE! It's in the past and it can't be changed. You can only work on the present and the future. And that's in Obama's hand now. So constantly going back to what Bush did and excusing Obama's deeds because "Bush did it" or "Bush did it even worse" is lame. Stop doing it.

I absolutely will not stop doing it. You can't negate the impact of the 8 years of bush's failed policies - to use that slogan from the fire/water damage company - like it never even happened.

It happened all right and the impact of bush's failed policies is still impacting us today. Put your head in the sand if you must, but I will continue to post the facts.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Cleo's poet: Healthcare is paid for

Is that what you think?

It's what I, congress, the CBO and those paying for it know.

[BJean 16]

Liar? Idiot!

[pattygreen 5]

I absolutely will not stop doing it. You can't negate the impact of the 8 years of bush's failed policies - to use that slogan from the fire/water damage company - like it never even happened.

It happened all right and the impact of bush's failed policies is still impacting us today. Put your head in the sand if you must, but I will continue to post the facts.

I guess you would rather play the blame game because that would take your focus off the present administration and all His spending.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I guess you would rather play the blame game because that would take your focus off the present administration and all His spending.

Most of his spending is on bush's policies and on mandated programs. Did you even look at the charts I posted - #853 on "bet your sorry you voted for obama" thread? Maybe it's too complicated for you to understand. I would be happy :thumbup: to explain it to you yet AGAIN.

[pattygreen 5]

It's what I, congress, the CBO and those paying for it know.

In the News

June 4, 2010

Paying for Obamacare: Kicking the Can Down the Road to Future Generations

Health care reform was supposed to lower health care spending while expanding access for the uninsured. Instead, though Obamacare will cost taxpayers trillions, it will do little to address the rising cost of care. The government overhaul will not only have large and immediate negative effects for Americans of every ilk, but will have severe implications for future generations, amassing more federal debt to kick down the road to tomorrow’s taxpayers. In a recent paper, Heritage expert James Capretta lays out the several ways in which Obamacare will add to, rather than reduce, federal deficits:

– Omission of the “Doc Fix”: “The Obama Administration and leaders in Congress chose to use all of the tax hikes and spending cuts they could find to create another new entitlement instead of paying for a fix for Medicare physician fees.” According to Capretta, the cost of the doc fix will fall between $250 and $400 billion over a decade.

– Double-Counted CLASS Act Savings: The CLASS Act creates a long-term insurance program where enrollees must pay premiums for five years prior to receiving benefits. Writes Capretta, “premiums paid by enrollees build a small surplus—about $70 billion over 10 years according to CBO—which the health law’s proponents claim as deficit reduction. But these premiums will be needed in short order to pay actual claims.”

– Double-Counted (and Dubious) Medicare Cuts: Democrats claim that cuts to Medicare will increase the solvency of the program—but they simultaneously plan to use these cuts to pay for new entitlement programs. Capretta explains that “If the Medicare cuts and tax hikes for the hospital trust fund (about $400 billion over 10 years, according to CBO) are used solely to improve the capacity of the government to pay future Medicare claims, then the health law becomes a massive exercise in deficit spending.”

– Underestimated Loss of Employer Coverage: CBO estimates that just 3 million Americans will lose employer-sponsored insurance and receive coverage in the new exchanges instead, but because of new incentives for employers to dump coverage and pay a penalty in its case, the more likely effects are much more dramatic. Capretta cites a study by Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Cameron Smith of the American Action Forum, which predicts that as many as 35 million will lose employer coverage and receive subsidies instead, which would add to the cost of Obamacare by upwards of $400 billion over a decade.

The costs of Obamacare will supposedly be paid for through new taxes and spending cuts, many of which take the form of Medicare payment reductions to providers. Because of the limitations these will put on Medicare enrollees access to doctors, they are unlikely to occur—and if they do, will reduce the quality of care that seniors receive. As the cost of Obamacare grows as a result, future generations will be faced with the feat of paying for it—for real.

[pattygreen 5]

Obamacare: Impact on Future Generations

Published on June 1, 2010 by James C. Capretta

President Obama and other proponents of the recently passed health care law argue that the legislation was desperately needed to improve the nation’s health system for both today’s citizens as well as future generations.

But there are many reasons to be concerned that this new law will instead deliver both a lower quality health system and more costly and burdensome government for those paying taxes in future years.

Another Runaway Entitlement Program

The centerpiece of the new legislation is a large-scale coverage expansion. The Medicaid program is expanded to cover all households with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), and subsidized insurance is provided for families with incomes between 133 and 400 percent FPL. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that these two expansions will bring 34 million people onto the federal entitlement rolls by 2017.[1] Moreover, by 2019, CBO says the cost of these “coverage” provisions is likely to escalate very rapidly and in line with the rising costs of existing health entitlement programs, including Medicare.

Proponents claim that the tax hikes and spending reductions in the bill will be more than sufficient to pay for the added costs of another large expansion in federal spending. And, in fact, CBO’s cost estimate shows a net deficit reduction from the health-related provisions of the bill at $124 billion over the period 2010–2019.

But, for many reasons, the impact on future taxpayers is likely to be much more adverse than CBO’s estimates indicate.

The True Cost of the Legislation

Omission of the Medicare “Doc Fix.” The Obama Administration and leaders in Congress chose to use all of the tax hikes and spending cuts they could find to create another new entitlement instead of paying for a fix for Medicare physician fees (the so-called “doc fix”). Under current law, those fees are set to get cut by 21 percent in June. The Obama Administration wants to undo the cut permanently, but it does not provide any offsetting savings. The result will be a spending increase of between $250 billion and $400 billion over a decade. Passing an unfinanced “doc fix” wipes out all of the supposed savings from the new legislation and greatly adds to the burden on future taxpayers.

The CLASS Act Gimmick. The new health law creates a voluntary long-term care insurance program, called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. Those who sign up for it must pay premiums for five years before becoming eligible for benefit payments. Consequently, premiums paid by enrollees build a small surplus—about $70 billion over 10 years according to CBO—which the health law’s proponents claim as deficit reduction. But these premiums will be needed in short order to pay actual claims.

Moreover, the Chief Actuary of the Medicare program predicts that the program will experience severe adverse selection.[2] When that happens, the program will either need to dramatically cut benefits or get a major federal bailout. Thus, not only is it inappropriate to claim the $70 billion in premiums as savings, but this program will almost certainly become a huge new unfinanced burden on future taxpayers.

Medicare Cuts. CBO and the Chief Actuary for the Medicare program have both stated that Medicare spending cuts cannot be counted twice—to pay for a new entitlement expansion and to claim that Medicare’s financial outlook has improved.[3] But that is exactly what the proponents of the new legislation do. If the Medicare cuts and tax hikes for the hospital trust fund (about $400 billion over 10 years, according to CBO[4]) are used solely to improve the capacity of the government to pay future Medicare claims, then the health law becomes a massive exercise in deficit spending.

But the problems do not end there. Many of the assumptions used to build the official cost projections are likely to prove entirely too optimistic.

Estimates of Employees Dropped from Job-Based Coverage. The new insurance arrangements in the state-based exchanges will provide massive new subsidies to low- and moderate-wage households. For instance, at 200 percent FPL, the subsidy for a family of four will reach nearly $11,000 in 2014. But CBO estimates that only 3 million Americans will move from job-based insurance into the exchanges to take advantage of the subsidies, even though there are about 130 million Americans under age 65 with incomes between 100 and 400 percent FPL. Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Cameron Smith of the American Action Forum have estimated that as many as 35 million people will be moved out of job-based coverage and into subsidization. If that is the case, the 10-year cost of the coverage expansion provisions would jump by $400 billion more.[5]

Upward Pressure on Health Care Inflation. If, as CBO projects, some 30 million or more people get heavily subsidized comprehensive insurance coverage, it is certain that higher demand for services will put upward pressure on the prices charged for those services. Of course, in government-regulated insurance such as Medicaid, the fees are not as flexible. But in private plans, there is nothing to stop the added demand from pushing fees higher in coming years.

Arbitrary Government Payment Rate Reductions

The President has spoken often of the need to “bend the cost curve” of health care with “delivery system reform.” But the provisions in Medicare aimed at changing the way doctors and hospitals are organized and provide services are mainly small and untested pilot projects that are very unlikely to fundamentally change the cost structure of American medicine.

The real cost-cutting in the law comes in the form of payment rate reductions in the Medicare program that are applied across the board and without regard to any assessment of quality of the care. The Chief Actuary of the Medicare program believes that these cuts will lead to large-scale abandonment of Medicare by hospitals that can no longer afford to take patients at the government’s below-cost rates.[6]

The Opposite Effect

The President and congressional leaders have argued that a primary benefit from the health law will be reduced long-term budget pressure and thus a brighter future for coming generations of taxpayers. But when the cost estimate is adjusted for omissions, gimmicks, double-counting, and unrealistic assumptions, it is clear that the new health law will increase the burden, not lessen it.

One recent estimate projects the bill will add more than $500 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years and $1.5 trillion in the decade following.[7] And any cost-cutting that does occur under the new law will come in the form of arbitrary governmental controls that will put up barriers to care in future years.

James C. Capretta is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center

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In the News

June 2, 2010

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.

Why did CBO think the other 108 eligibles wouldn’t ask for “free” federal money? Because Congress added a “firewall” provision: You can’t get a subsidy unless you have no employer-sponsored coverage, or your contribution toward employer-based coverage exceeds 9.8 percent of your income.

But this firewall is flimsy. The inducement Obamacare gives employers to keep providing generous health coverage is the threat of slapping them with a $2,000 per employee penalty if they drop coverage.

The new study by Holtz-Eakin, now president of the American Action Forum, and his colleague Cameron Smith demonstrates just how ineffective this penalty will be. It presents the example of an insured low-income worker earning one-third more than the federal poverty level. The employer could drop that worker’s coverage, give him a raise, pay the penalty and still save money. Meanwhile, the worker could pocket the raise and the Obamacare subsidy, buy his own coverage and be none the worse for wear.

As Holtz-Eakin and Smith put it, “There is room for the employer to actually improve the worker’s life by having a small pay raise and the same insurance and still save money.” For a health plan worth $15,921, the employee would get a bonus of $128 to keep the same health plan in the exchange, and the employer would save $9,941, even after paying the penalty.

In theory, everyone “wins”. Sort of. The employer gets to dump expensive federally mandated health coverage, and the employee, who may have liked that coverage, still gets a pay raise. The only big loser is the employer and employee who happens to be a taxpayer. The feds will have to dole out subsidies to even middle class families whose employers drop coverage due to the programs perverse incentives. After crunching the numbers, Holtz-Eakin and Smith concluded that as many as 35 million could lose employer-sponsored coverage, bringing the price tag of the subsidies from a” measly” $450 billion to about $1.4 trillion. Have a nice day.

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

Author: Kathryn Nix

[pattygreen 5]

It's what I, congress, the CBO and those paying for it know.

<LI class=first nodeIndex="1">Resize:<LI class="small alt" nodeIndex="2">A<LI class=medium nodeIndex="3">A<LI class="large last alt" nodeIndex="4">AIn Their Own Words: CBO Admits Obamacare Unsustainable

Posted May 28th, 2010 at 4:15pm in Health Care with 15 comments Print This Post

This Wednesday CBO Director Doug Elmendorf gave a slide presentation on Capitol Hill titled: Health Costs and the Federal Budget. Elemendorf’s very first slide reads:

Rising health costs will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond. In CBO’s judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure.

The presentation concludes:

Putting the federal budget on a sustainable path would almost certainly require a significant reduction in the growth of federal health spending relative to current law (including this year’s health legislation).

In other words, our nation’s budget is on an unsustainable path and Obamacare did nothing to change that.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

How Health Care Reform Reduces the Deficit in 5 Not-So-Easy Steps

Americans think the bill is too expensive because they don't understand its cost controls.

It's hard to overstate how important the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)—which makes the official judgments on how much bills cost and save—is in Washington. "I consider CBO God around here," Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, recently said.

But that's a faith peculiar to Washington, D.C. The rest of the country doesn't know what the CBO is, and it doesn't care. "Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office," wrote the pollsters Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in the Wall Street Journal, "but 81 percent of voters say it's likely [health care reform] will end up costing more than projected."

That's left Democrats in a worst-of-both-worlds situation: They've built a bill that Washington's toughest scorekeeper says will cut the deficit by more than a trillion dollars over 20 years. They're getting attacked for the taxes and Medicare reforms that save all that money. But the country doesn't believe the savings are real.

One of the problems Democrats have had is that it's very easy to understand the one thing the bill does to spend money—purchase insurance for people who can't afford it—and considerably harder to explain the many things it does to save money. Another is that a lot of the savings have to do with changing how medicine is practiced, which people are less familiar with than how insurance is purchased.

But the fact that the cost controls are complicated and numerous doesn't mean they're absent, or that they won't work. Here's a guide to a few of the bill's best ideas, and how they work:

Create a competitive insurance market:

This is the bill's first, and most important, step. Right now, the insurance market's version of competition is pretty brutal. Companies compete to avoid the sickest people and sign up the healthiest people. Offering the best coverage for the lowest cost isn't much of a priority, because most consumers don't know whose coverage is best, and the ones who really do know are probably sick customers who spend their days researching this stuff.

Outlawing the bad kind of competition while enabling the good kind, which the bill does, is more than just a humanitarian measure. It's a cost control. The insurance "exchanges" imitate the market in which federal employees (including congressmen) purchase their health care insurance. Participating insurers can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, they have to answer to regulators if they attempt to jack up premiums, and consumers will be able to rate their insurers, a rating that everyone else will see when shopping for their insurance.

If all goes well, consumers will be able to log onto the exchange's Website, compare insurance plans, and choose their favorite. That means insurers will have to compete for customers. As any free-market conservative will tell you, that should drive prices down and quality up. If it doesn't, insurers will have some annoyed legislators to answer to: The bill says congressmen and their staff members need to buy their insurance from these exchanges, too.

The Medicare Commission:

The next cost control worth mentioning is an effort by Congress to solve the problem of, well, Congress. Medicare's cost problem is, in many ways, a political problem: Saving money means cutting someone's profits or someone's benefits, and politicians are afraid to do either.

Enter the Independent Medicare Advisory Board. Modeled off of the highly-respected (but totally toothless) Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission, IMAC is a 15-person board of independent experts chosen by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and empowered to cut through congressional gridlock. IMAC will write reforms that bring Medicare into like with certain spending targets. Congress can't modify these proposals, it can't filibuster these proposals, and if it wants to reject them, it needs to find another way to save the same amount of money. Making the process of passing tough reforms easier is the single most important thing you can do to make sure tough reforms actually happen.

A tax on "Cadillac plans":

The least popular, but most direct, cost control is the tax on expensive, employer-provided coverage. Today, the average employer who offers insurance pays more than 70 percent of a worker's premiums, all of it tax-free. This amounts to an annual $250 billion subsidy for private insurance for people with good jobs. But it's not just the size of the subsidy; it's how we use it that matters. People have their employers pay for their health-care insurance, which means individuals don't know how much their insurance really costs and don't have as much incentive to keep those costs down. Imagine the pressure for cost control if the 70 percent that employers pay were coming out of our own pockets, instead of quietly coming out of our wages.

In 2018, the proposed excise tax on so-called "Cadillac plans" slaps a 40 percent tax on every dollar spent on an insurance plan above $27,500 annually. So if your plan costs $27,600, the final $100 bucks would be taxed (technically, the insurer pays the tax, but it'll pass that onto your employer). But the idea isn't that people will pay this tax. It's that they, or their employers, evade it by choosing insurance that holds its costs down more aggressively. That gives insurers who hold costs down a competitive advantage against insurers who don't. because those who don't are not only more expensive, but also paying a hefty tax on their excess spending.

Medicare "bundling" programs:

The most obviously illogical part of our current health care system is that we pay doctors the way we pay car dealers: They get more money for every item they sell. But while we aren't afraid to ignore a car dealer's recommendations, we are afraid to disagree with our doctors. As you'd expect, this pushes costs higher.

The health-care bill seeds Medicare with many experiments to change this status quo, the most immediately promising of which are the "bundling" programs. Instead of getting paid for everything they do to help a diabetic, hospitals will get paid once for treating that person's diabetes and all related conditions over a certain period of time. If this leads to lower costs and doesn't harm patients, it will be expanded. That would be the beginning of the end of paying for quantity of treatment, and the beginning of paying for quality of treatment.

Changing the politics of reform:

Republicans and Democrats both agree that we need more cost control in the health-care system. But politicians don't like to actually cut costs, because those votes reduce benefits and make people angry. So we've played a game in the past: We passively control costs by letting people become and stay uninsured, or by letting their insurance deteriorate and cover less, because those things don't require a vote in Congress.

But because the individual mandate in the bill brings everyone into the insurance market and the subsidies for those who can't afford insurance on their own put Washington on the hook for costs, Congress will have to get serious about holding costs down in the system. The alternatives, for lawmakers, are high costs infuriating constituents who're being forced to buy something they can't afford, or yawning deficits forcing them to vote to take subsidies -- and thus health-care coverage -- away from people who currently have it. The days of letting inertia win the day and watching the system fall apart on its own are over.

There's more, of course. Five is just a good round number. The bill's basic theory is to try pretty much everything in the hopes that some of it works out. The net effect is to make reform a continuous, rather than occasional, process, with different cost cops patrolling different beats. Insurers will have to work hard to stay a step ahead of the excise tax because employers won't want to buy plans that trigger it. The industries that provide medical care and technologies will have to hold their costs down because they don't want to become a target for the Medicare Commission. Hospitals will need to make sure they don't spend more than their competitors because they'll lose money under bundling.

Until now, our health care system has had few internal cost controls and the comforting knowledge that Congress doesn't have the gumption to pass any. No longer. If the bill passes, it's change the health-care industry will have no choice but to believe in.

[pattygreen 5]

CBO Director Elmendorf destroys a core Presidential health care argument

28 May Print this

CBO Director Dr. Douglas Elmendorf has posted the slides he used in a presentation Wednesday to the Institute of Medicine, titled “Health Costs and the Federal Budget.” The presentation obliterates the claims of the President and his allies about the effects of the new laws on federal health spending and the budget.

For months the President and his Budget Director correctly argued that the goal of health care reform was to “bend the cost curve down.” The projected path of per capita health spending is unsustainable and will result in three bad outcomes:

1. those with health insurance will have less money available for other needs;
   
2. it will be harder for the uninsured to buy insurance; and
   
3. government spending on Medicare and Medicaid will break federal and state budgets.
   

Here is the President at the Blair House:

The third thing it seems — I assume we can all agree on is that over the last decade costs have doubled for health care in America — costs have doubled for government-provided health care, but everybody’s health care. And that that meant that right now everybody knows that that wrecks budgets, it wrecks state budget, it wrecks family budgets, it wrecks federal budgets. Every 35 cents of every dollar spent on health care is spent by the federal government or the state governments for Medicare and Medicaid — 35 cents on the dollar. That doesn’t count veterans and other things, just those two. And so — and what’s happened is — on the dollar, on every health care dollar.

And so we’re facing, all of us around this table, Democrat and Republicans, are facing the fact that there’s $919 billion now we’re spending on Medicare and the federal portion of Medicaid, and that if things — I don’t see any firewall is going to keep costs from doubling again, we’re going to be talking about in the year 2019 we’re going to be spending $1.7 trillion if we don’t do something to bend that curve.

A common refrain from the President and his Budget Director was “health care reform is entitlement reform.” And through two budget cycles, when senior Administration officials were pressed on their plans for deficit reduction, they always returned to the argument that health care reform would substantially improve the federal budget outlook.

CBO Director Dr. Douglas Elmendorf has shown this argument to be incorrect.

This is the best and most direct presentation I have seen on the subject. I commend Dr. Elmendorf for his honesty, clarity and bluntness. I wish he had been this blunt and this clear in February and March before these bills became law.

Here is Dr. Elmendorf’s first slide. Emphasis is mine.

The Challenge

Rising health costs will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond.

In CBO’s judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure.

Here he shows the effects on Medicare spending of the two new health care laws, as well as the effect if Congress permanently extends a Medicare “doctors’ fix” like the “temporary” one being considered in the House today. The light blue line represents Medicare spending before the new laws, the dark blue line after the new laws, and the dotted line is the new laws plus a permanent doc fix. You can see that there is net Medicare savings even with a permanent doc fix, but the unsustainable spending growth still exists. And this is the part of the federal government where they “cut” (slowed the growth of) spending to pay for part of the new health care subsidies.

Now Dr. Elmendorf shows us the effects of the new laws on spending for Medicaid, CHIP, and the new health insurance subsidies You can see how the new spending line (in light blue) is an enormous increase over the baseline spending in dark blue.

OK, now let’s examine the net effects of the two laws.

Since the dark blue bars are roughly the same height as the combination of the light blue bars, the net deficit effect shown by the line is right about zero. Congressional Democratic leaders optimized to maximize coverage and minimize political pain from spending cuts and tax increases without increasing the deficit. Had they instead focused on the the President’s stated priority of “bending the cost curve down,” this graph would have looked quite different. The deficit reduction boasted about by the Administration and its allies is trivially small.

Dr. Elmendorf is direct:

The legislation will increase [the federal budgetary commitment to health care] by nearly $400 B during the 2010-2019 period but reduce it in the following decade.

The legislation will reduce budget deficits by about $140 billion during the 2010-2019 period and by an amount in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP during the following decade.

Q: How can both these statements be true? Over the next decade, how can the new laws increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care while reducing the deficit?

A: By redirecting non-health dollars to health. The increased Medicare payroll taxes on “the rich” are the best example. These laws devote more federal resources to health care. We were supposed to move the other way and devote less.

On February 23, 2009, the President said:

In the coming years, we’ll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter described, which is

the single most

pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.

Once again Dr. Elmendorf debunks this claim that “it’s all about health cost growth.” This graph shows that, at least for the next decade, most of the growth in federal entitlement spending is the result of aging. Excess cost growth of health spending is a critically important but secondary factor.

Finally, here is Dr. Elmendorf’s concluding slide. Emphasis again is mine.

Putting the federal budget on a sustainable path would almost certainly require a significant reduction in the growth of federal health spending relative to current law (

including this year’s health legislation

).

Never before have I seen a CBO Director so bluntly refute the policy claims of a President and his Budget Director.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Report Shows Health Reform Will Reduce Health Care Spending By Nearly $600 Billion While Improving Access To Care For 32 Million Uninsured

The Center for American Progress and The Commonwealth Fund released a report today that details the effects of the health reform law passed in March.

The report, "The Impact of Health Reform on Health System Spending," concludes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010's significant payment and system reform provisions will begin to realign health care system incentives and reduce cost growth far in excess of that predicted by the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of the Actuary within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The report projects the new law's effects on total national health expenditures and the insurance premiums families are likely to pay. Most assessments of the law have focused only on how it will affect the federal budget. The new report by CAP Senior Fellow and Harvard economist David Cutler, Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, and Senior Research Associate Kristof Stremikis takes into account implications of important research not reflected in previous analyses and estimates that the health reform law will result in:

- Total reductions in health care spending of $590 billion from 2010 to 2019

- Reduction in the annual growth rate in national health expenditures from 6.3 percent to 5.7 percent from 2010 to 2019

- Savings of nearly $2,000 on annual health care premiums for the typical family by 2019

- Deficit reduction of up to $400 billion over 10 years

- Medicare savings of $524 billion

The authors find that establishing new insurance market rules, health insurance exchanges, and innovative provider payment and delivery system reforms will result in substantial health system modernization and improved access to care for millions of previously uninsured and underinsured Americans.

"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the most significant piece of health care cost-reducing legislation ever passed in the United States," said David Cutler, CAP Senior Fellow and Harvard economist. "It gives us the tools to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical care. Now we need to use those tools to make reform work."

"With passage of the Affordable Care Act we have entered a new era in American health care-one in which all Americans will be able to get the care they need, and in which families will be protected from high health care costs," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. "By changing the way we pay for and deliver care to reward high performance, we will begin to bend the health care cost curve, and all Americans will see real economic benefits."

Source

The Commonwealth Fund

[pattygreen 5]

That's right. Just ignore the proof I gave you concerning the "true" cost of HC, and its effects for Americans and continue to post your lies.

Edited June 6, 2010 by pattygreen