Quick Fact: Hemmer baselessly cites "critics" calling health care reform a "budget-buster"
Fox News host Bill Hemmer stated that "critics" of the Senate health care reform bill "say it's a budget-buster that leaves taxpayers in America on the hook for years to come," and subsequently interviewed Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who said that the bill is a reason "we're headed towards a situation where we're not even going to be able to afford to pay the debt we've run up as a nation." But Hemmer at no point noted that the Congressional Budget Office reported that the Senate's health reform bill will reduce federal deficits by $130 billion through 2019.
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From the December 22 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
HEMMER: Critics of that $871 billion health care measure say it's a budget-buster that leaves taxpayers in America on the hook for years to come.
[...]
HEMMER: Senator, good morning to you, and thanks for coming back on our program. Is there any Monopoly money left in that town?
GREGG: No, there isn't. It would be nice if we were concerned about the short run too because basically, within the next 24 hours or 48 hours, we're about to spend $2.3 trillion we don't have. That's $2.3 trillion. You're going to take the size of the government up significantly, and as a result, we're going to pass on to our kids a government they can't afford. It's going to reduce their standard of living, and we're headed towards a situation where we're not even going to be able to afford to pay the debt we've run up as a nation, and we're headed toward some serious times -- fiscal times ahead.
FACT: CBO projected Senate health bill would reduce deficit
CBO: Bill yields "a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion" over 10 years. From CBO's December 19 cost estimate of the Senate bill incorporating the manager's amendment:
CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the manager's amendment would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $130 billion over the 2010-2019 period.
CBO expects bill to continue deficit reduction during decade after 2019. CBO also estimated on December 20 that the bill will continue to reduce the deficit beyond the 10-year budget window that ends in 2019 "with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP."
They dishonestly act like we can simply stop paying those entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare! We can't. They act like we can simply stop paying for medical coverage for veterans and active duty soldiers and their families. We can't.
This is a recycled argument that's been debunked before. One cannot talk about the cost of doing something different without talking about the cost of the status quo. It'd be unfair to complain that I spent $100 at the grocery store if I bought food we needed and would have spent $120 at the store I normally go to for the same bags of groceries!
This is not rocket science, and so the liars who are creating this message know that it's not true but still send this message out, hoping that the listeners aren't quite so savvy.
Ill gove some critics names: walter willims, jeff jacoby, george will
But being a worn-out, recycled troll name, you likely already know that this false talking point has already been debunked.
You can't claim that CBO projections aren't always reliable and then in the next breath praise people who are politically partisan and who don't have the numbers to back up their allegations of budget-busting!
The best projections we have say that the status quo was the budget-buster. The "solutions" suggested by the Republicans wouldn't have helped with the growth of the entitlement programs nor with increasing coverage among uninsured people.
You don't have a leg to stand on.
Ummm...yes I can criticize the cbo and support other projections. It means I have more confidence in the partisans...who by the way point out every goevernment projection has been low ball (in insurance you get fired, fined and maybe arrested for low balling...)
The only troll using rrastro was before mmfa required a sign on and somone used my screen name to malign me...
Was that you?
ps..what past wrong did i do that makes it ethical to attack me??
Other posters who have been here longer than I have say that your screen name was here years ago as one of the original rightwing troll posters. I have looked into the history, and I don't believe your allegations that it was another poster who stole your identity.
And if you aren't educated on this topic, you shouldn't be trying to educate us. Not every CBO and government projection has been low-balled. That's a dishonest allegation.
And yes, you can support any projection your heart desires. That doesn't change the fact that support of a dishonest projection that ignores a huge variable or two or three is dishonest. You can do whatever you want, but you can't then "legitimately" claim that some projection by this partisn group that ignores important variables is reliable!
The troll post using my screen name were left wing "mea culpas" for my "incorrect" (unorthodox?)
How many claims have you handled?
And the number of claims one has handled has nothing to do with this topic, dum-dum. Experts in figuring out projected costs, who know what variables to include and how much weight to give each one, have done the work necessary. As I explained to you in the past, it's not a job for you or me - it's a job for experts, and the 'experts' at FoxNews have been debunked. The CBO has not.
And if you really wanted to know the ignored variables, you'd have read and absorbed MMFA's multiple articles on the topic.
One can't attack projections as not always being correct on what actually happens, which is what you did, and then support another group making a projection.
If projections are bad, then projections are bad. And that's the argument you made when you said "projections alsways pan out dont they?"
Then you went ahead and supported a different group's projections! That's hypocrisy and dishonesty and stupidity all in one place.
How about the Bush tax cuts, 2 wars, prescription drug benefit with out being paid for and no negotiating power with big pharma.