Great job, guys!.
Oh, and about that WONDERFUL $940 billion (thanks Leon - forgot that zero) price tag the CBO came out with yesterday? Well [ed] ...
To see the bill’s true first-decade costs, we need to start the clock when the costs would actually start in any meaningful way: in 2014. The CBO says that Obamacare would cost $2.0 trillion in the bill’s real first decade (from 2014 to 2023) — and much more in the decades to come.
But $2.0 trillion wouldn’t be the total ten-year costs. Instead, that would merely be the “gross cost of coverage provisions.” Based on earlier incarnations of the proposed overhaul, the total costs would be about a third higher (the exact number can’t be gleaned from the CBO’s analysis, which is only preliminary and is not a full scoring) — making the total price-tag between $2.5 and $3 trillion over the bill’s real first decade.
How would we pay for all of this? According to the CBO, by diverting $1.1 trillion away from already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it on Obamacare, and by increasing taxes on the American people by over $1 trillion. Among the Medicare cuts would be cuts of $25,000 in Medicare Advantage benefits per enrollee — up from $21,000 in the previous scoring. To be clear, those living in South Florida wouldn’t have to worry about this, as the newly politicized nature of health care would cause them to be exempted. These cuts would affect only less-fortunate seniors, namely those living in just about any other part of the country.
Oh, but there's more
We’d also pay for this through increased deficits. Under strict instructions from the Democrats, the CBO gave Obamacare credit for over $400 billion (from 2014 to 2023) in phony “savings” that would allegedly result from cutting doctor’s payments under Medicare by over 20 percent and never raising them back up. As the CBO notes, one of two things could happen: Congress could either follow through on these severe pay cuts — in which case doctors would view all Medicare patients as if they have the plague — or, Congress could eliminate these pay cuts — as everyone in Washington expects to have happen under the so-called “doc fix” — in which case the CBO projects that this bill would raise deficits by over $100 billion from 2017 to 2019 alone.
And what do we get?
According to the CBO, health insurance premiums would STILL rise 10 to 13 percent. The percentage of GDP STILL rises to 21% by 2019. And, according to the CBO, 23 million people will STILL be without health insurance.
GOOD JOB, BROWNIE!
Not to mention, crammed into this piece of shit, is the federal take-over (except in North Dakota) of the Federal Family Education Loan. Why? So they can use the profits from those loans to pay for other federal spending.
But, please, say it again, because it's amusing. No socialism here. Nope. Not a bit.
FIAF tunage:
Now, to bring me off the ledge:
Thom, you may be a lefty loon, but you're awesome when you're just doing your thang.
Posts
|