AP falsehood: Obama health plan "would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years"
The Associated Press reported that "even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says" health reform bills "with the elements Obama wants would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years." In fact, the CBO has found that the only complete bill to be given a cost estimate "would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period."
From the August 3 AP article:
Obama claims his health effort will not dig the nation deeper into debt and over time will help reduce deficits. He has vowed to not sign any health bill that raises deficits.
But even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that none of the health plans pending on Capitol Hill would control long-term spending, and that ones with the elements Obama wants would add around $1 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
CBO estimated House health bill would increase deficit by $239 billion -- not $1 trillion
CBO found that the House tri-committee bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $239 billion over 10 years -- not $1 trillion. In its July 17 cost estimate of the bill as introduced, CBO explained that its "estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill's insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that [the Joint Committee on Taxation] estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years." CBO thus concluded the legislation "would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period."
Media continue to promote cost estimate falsehood
The AP joins New York Times, Fox News Sunday, CNBC's Bartiromo, Fox News' Rove in advancing cost estimate falsehood. During the July 27 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNBC host Maria Bartiromo falsely asserted as fact that the health care reform proposal under consideration in Congress would cost a "trillion dollars over 10 years." Likewise, a July 28 New York Times article falsely reported that the House health care reform bill is estimated to cost "$1 trillion over 10 years." During the July 29 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Fox News political contributor Karl Rove claimed that House Democrats were "planning on a 1 trillion, 420 billion -- 420 million dollar price tag of additional spending over the next 10 years." NPR's Mara Liasson and Fox News' Chris Wallace also advanced the falsehood that health care reform is estimated to cost $1 trillion over 10 years.
If the plan includes cost SAVINGS over a budget period, then that does NOT add to the deficit. Pretty simple stuff.
The AP, et. al. will tell you that their job is just reporting the message and that it is the job of the DNC & WH to push the correct $$ numbers ...
Ideally, Tom Raum of the AP would be more accurate than Michele Bachmann.
I'll bet no one here knows that the government will start collecting collecting taxes for the Health program in 2011 but won't start paying benefits until 2015. So for four of the 10 years the program is not paying out only collecting.
Since the CBO is prevented by law from projecting further than 10 years it kind of skews the results.
Other projections show that the first 10 year of payouts will produce an additional deficit of $760 Billion and it could be $1.6 trillion by the end of the 2020s.
MMFA also does not tell you that some of that lower cost estimates by the CBO do not include overhead and administrative costs.
One more thing. Obama and the MMFA also do not tell you that they get $360 billion dollar savings in the CBO report by reducing Medicare spending. Did you know Medicare currently has a $38 trillion unfunded liabilities? Did you know that Medicare will start going into the red in 2017, four years after the start of this program. Currently there is no legislation to prop up Medicare funding and it will need another $229 billion in the years 2017 to 2019.
MMFA seems to ignore the fact that this Health Care Reform package will, according to that CBO report, increase costs, not lower them!
Everyone knows health care needs reform. What we don't need is for the government, who can't even manage a $1 billion cash for klunkers program, to try and manage one seventh of our economy.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/years-health-care-coverage-costs-turn-unfunded-mandate/
Nice leftist talking points in an attempt to deflect the issue.
Better luck next time.
Tax hikes for the middle class
Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike --
Say what? Pres.Obama has already been very clear about no new taxes on the middle/lower classes. The comment should have read "we're sticking by the President's pledge of no new taxes" as we work through this recession.
If they can't say that...then the inmates are really running the asylum. Thanks for the link, RO.
Clearly, and we all know this, taxes are going to go up. They will go up when the Bush tax cuts expire, they'll go up when and if a surtax passes as part of the health care overhaul. Because one official refused to be pinned down in an interview, well, Obama's a big liar now, right? Save it for when it is reality, and not one excerpt from one interview taken out of context.
Just what the last sheep thought as he crashed over the cliff and joined his mangled brethren...but, but, Little Bo Peep promised us a soft landing.
The issue of our economy has never been a problem with too little revenue...it's always been too much spending, along with a choking govt. bureacracy.
Lest you forget, the concentration of wealth, and the top marginal rate, haven't looked like this since that last time the Republicans drove the economy off the tracks.
Reagan's irresponsible tax giveaways, pinning the top rate at 28%, while government spending rose to about 20% of total GDP, was ludicrously irresponsible, only to be outdone by Bush's fiscal trainwreck.
So, we don't need to hear about how taxes on the highest earners is unfair and detrimental to the wider economy.
If that's such a good idea, why so reliant on the truly bizarre, losing strategy of clinging to rural white Christian angst to win elections? The math is not in your favor, on fiscal policy, and with the detestable backwardism.
Who are these 'rural, white Christians' you find to be so fearful? Do you know any? Or are you just trusting what that evil right leaning MSM is telling you?
This may come as a surprise to you, but it is Congress (who controlled both houses from 1932 - 1994 except for two years under Eisenhower, and had only the House in the first two years of Reagan, if my memory serves me right), that raised the spending levels.
I remember Reagan having to shut down the government at least twice to try and control those Democrat idiots. The excesses of the Democrats during the Reagan years is what brought on the purge of 1994.
We need another Reagan, and another purge. We need people in government who don't think that the government has the right and duty to take our money and give it away. We need people in government who understand the two basic principles of the Constitution - personal freedom and limited government. Unless we elect that kind of leadership, this government is going to collapse - and should.
Here's the quote: "The starting point for such an analysis of the recent House proposal is our estimate of the proposal’s impact on the federal budget deficit in the first 10 years. As discussed in CBO’s letter of July 17, we estimate that the proposal as a whole would increase federal deficits by $239 billion over the 2010–2019 period. That estimate has three major
components: the net effect of the coverage specifications, which affect both spending and revenues and which would add an estimated $1,042 billion to cumulative deficits over
that period; the effect of other provisions, primarily regarding Medicare, that would reduce direct spending by a net $219 billion; and the effect of still other provisions
(primarily, an income tax surcharge on high-income individuals) that would increase revenues by $583 billion. Under the proposal, federal spending on health care would increase by approximately the difference between the net cost of the coverage specifications and the reductions in direct spending."
Underline mine
So the statement is true - health care is going to cost the government over a Trillion dollars in the next ten years. But, with the optimistic goal of offsetting $583 Billion by a surcharge on the 'rich,' and some other envisioned savings, the deficit shouldn't expand by much more than 50% of what it was before the current rash of bailouts and stimuli occurred. That progressives would trumpet increasing the deficit by a mere $239 Billion shows how bankrupt the whole idea is.
And to think, they want to tax the top 1% of earners, a "staggering" 5% of their income. The people who have soaked up 80% of the income growth of the last two decades - why, its as if America has been very good to the rich, and now its time for the rich to be good to America. What a crazy egalitarian idea, this notion that we're all part of the same society.
Entitlement programs do not work! Show me one that does.
So, its obvious that some people who figure out the most efficient ways to scam the Market, screw both the consumers and their employees with the least possible amount of responsibility for themselves, who pump freight trains of other people's money to campaigns, lobbyists & interest groups to unfairly manipulate government in furtherance of their own gain, and turn right around and move the jobs of the very people that put them where they are overseas so they can 'freely' exploit the Third-World,,, who's hardest decisions are picking out the exotic materials for their bi-annual multi-million dollar corner office renovation, deciding on where to take each of their 6+ yearly paid vacations, and how best to hide their assets offshore,,,
Those types should obviously make more in 12 months than the person who sacrifices blood, sweat & tears, takes one pay & benefit cut after another, is riddled with debt and mortgaged to the hilt and can't even dream of sending his kids for a top-notch education,,, can hope to make in 450-700 YEARS working FOR the former.
Handouts indeed. You need to quit peddling the "American Dream" that can only ever exist in a dream for the vast majority of people who chase it. Stop promoting a disengenuous and dismally FAR-from-free-market economic/monetary scheme that absolutely positively guarantees X # of people must lose everything no matter what they do or how hard they work at it, and a system of hurdles and obstacles designed by and for the status quo.
I am reminded of the 'Fair Tax/Flat Tax' idiots & parasites who tried so hard to give us a system where some poor guy who's entire paltry paycheck gets spent on basic survival gets 100% of it taxed, (heaven forbid the rate if they are spending MORE than they earn to keep their heads above water) while some self-important clown with a god-complex & a vested interest in making sure there are an adequate amount of other people's backs for him to stand on, would only get taxed on the tiny fraction of income that he actually spends living a better life than his fellow man by orders of magnitude.
Don't get me wrong here, I am no socialist. There actually ARE those who deserve to be secure and comfortable with the fruits of THEIR OWN labor, just as there are indeed those who should starve in the streets if they will not even TRY to pull their own weight. That very much applies the same to the crack-head wino in the gutter as it does to the blue-blooded fop with a silver spoon in their colon who won't lift a finger towards honest work for less than a bloody fortune.
The system is heavily skewed as-is, and there are many on either end of the spectrum that by all rights should have their fortunes swapped.
Actually, I mischaracterized that, there isn't "one" system at all. There is the system at the top that struggles to get and keep as much as it can with as little actual effort as possible, then there is the system for the rest of us that works exactly the opposite.
If the government can do anything better that private industry, someone tell me where that is occurring.
Now show us where unrestrained capitalism has been socially and economicaly sustainable.
For nceeno, There is currently no bill to predict a cost for. Yah too bad we didn't privatise SS under Bush. That way it would be broken, the remains sent to Finacial CEO's as bonuses for a job well done.
The amount hatred towards ones fellow citizens that you and your fun loving friends are putting out is formidable. Congrats to Freedom's Watch, American's for Prosperity, Right Principles. And of course the Medical Industry, for having somehow, the resources to sustain a Million plus a day to defend their warm fuzzy staus quo.
Just getting rid of the parasites who drive up costs across the board and add absolutely nothing of value to the system, would easily more than pay for it all. Past time to send some quite unnecessary, and quite [un-free market] abject capitalist white collar mittlemensch to the bread line, and be done with their political & economic influence in the process.
My wife had a reaction to some medication she was prescribed that almost killed her. Had to have her stomach pumped in ER, and when that was over she had a terrible migrane. She asked the nurse for aspirin and was told, quite correctly, that the charcoal in her system would simply absorb it. So she suffered, but lived. 20 days later, the bill arrives. Sure enough $90.00 for TWO acetamenaphin tablets worth less than a dime, that she didnt even get...
That sort of thing happens every day, all across this country, and it pays for a LOT of country club memberships & campaign contributions, but it certainly doesn't do ANYTHING positive for health care, or for the free market.