"Sid9" wrote in message
...

"Joe from Kokomo" wrote in message
...

znuybv wrote:

You're in for a big surprise. The country can't afford free health
care. Your cost of health care will go up.

"Joe from Kokomo" wrote:

And the cost of health care hasn't *already* been going out of control
for the last ten years or more?

How could you have missed that? What other planet were you visiting?

Bob wrote:

How does this plan reduce the cost of health care?

It may -- or may not-- reduce the cost of health care. But it WILL stop
or slow waaay down its upward, out of control spiral.
.
.
CBO believes is will work.

The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform

By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN
Published: March 20, 2010

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the
latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost
about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some
costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words,
a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs - health
insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits - would actually
improve the nation's bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a
bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more
over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take
written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of
what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework
the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform
legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads
spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin
immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10
years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.

Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs
over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114
billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary
spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office's tabulation.

Consider, too, the fate of the $70 billion in premiums expected to be raised
in the first 10 years for the legislation's new long-term health care
insurance program. This money is counted as deficit reduction, but the
benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the
first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.

Another vivid example of how the legislation manipulates revenues is the
provision to have corporations deposit $8 billion in higher estimated tax
payments in 2014, thereby meeting fiscal targets for the first five years.
But since the corporations' actual taxes would be unchanged, the money would
need to be refunded the next year. The net effect is simply to shift dollars
from 2015 to 2014.

In addition to this accounting sleight of hand, the legislation would
blithely rob Peter to pay Paul. For example, it would use $53 billion in
anticipated higher Social Security taxes to offset health care spending.
Social Security revenues are expected to rise as employers shift from paying
for health insurance to paying higher wages. But if workers have higher
wages, they will also qualify for increased Social Security benefits when
they retire. So the extra money raised from payroll taxes is already spoken
for. (Indeed, it is unlikely to be enough to keep Social Security solvent.)
It cannot be used for lowering the deficit.

A government takeover of all federally financed student loans - which
obviously has nothing to do with health care - is rolled into the bill
because it is expected to generate $19 billion in deficit reduction.

Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the
legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it
to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink,
and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to
operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress is likely to continue
to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and
other providers.

Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the
stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance
($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not
accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562
billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two
more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.

The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from
education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise
that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less.

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.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the director of the Congressional Budget Office
from 2003 to 2005, is the president of the American Action Forum, a policy
institute.