Moore claims "most analysts believe" health care bill "is a revenue loser"; CBO disagrees
On Fox, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore claimed that one reason the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the health care reform reconciliation package reduces the deficit is because it scored "10 years of revenue ... but only six years of spending," adding that "if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser." In fact, CBO estimated that the bill will continue to lower the deficit after 2019, long after all the spending has kicked in.
Please upgrade your flash player. The video for this item requires a newer version of Flash Player. If you are unable to install flash you can download a QuickTime version of the video.
Moore falsely claims "if you match up the cost with the revenues," the bill "is a revenue loser"
Moore claims spending and revenue "mismatch" kept bill from looking like a "revenue loser." From the March 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (host): How do they say we're going to pay for this?
MOORE: OK. So, first of all, this is roughly a trillion -- let's just round it to about a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But, remember, this runs into the problem we talked about a couple weeks ago that it's -- the way that CBO has scored it: 10 years of revenues, Greta, but only six years of spending. So, it's a mismatch.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK. All right, so, for 10 years we're going to be paying for it, but we don't get 10 years of services?
MOORE: Right. We get six years.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right.
MOORE: That's one way they keep the deficit down because they don't start spending until the year's out.
VAN SUSTEREN: But they start collecting.
MOORE: Right. And so, actually --
VAN SUSTEREN: That's like going -- that's like making a car payment for four years but they don't deliver the car for four years.
MOORE: Well put. I like that analogy, and --
VAN SUSTEREN: And so you sit there and wait.
MOORE: And so, in fact, if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe that this is a revenue loser.
VAN SUSTEREN: I think that's silly the way they do that.
CBO projected deficit reductions would continue after 2019
CBO: Senate bill yields "a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion" over 10 years. On March 18, CBO released its preliminary estimate of the effect of the combined effect of the Senate bill and reconciliation proposal on the federal budget. It found:
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation -- H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation proposal -- would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period.
CBO: Over second 10 years, reconciliation bill would save "around one-half percent of GDP." CBO also estimated savings for the decade following the 2010-2019 period:
Therefore, CBO has developed a rough outlook for the decade following the 2010-2019 period by grouping the elements of the legislation into broad categories and (together with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation) assessing the rate at which the budgetary impact of each of those broad categories is likely to increase over time.
[...]
Using that same analytic approach, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation bill would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law -- with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.
No Greta. It's like saving up for a car for 4 years, so you can pay cash for it and not borrow any money to pay for it. Something Republicans are not familiar with.
I don't get the Dems tho on why they don't explain things like this better. YOU cannot start paying subsidies until you have the money and it is projected to take 3 or 4 years to raise the revenue to start paying those subsidies.
Your analogy is way off terrapin
You act as if they are taking in revenue for 4 years so they don't pay anything after they receive the product (health care). Fact is, they are still taking in revenue via fees and taxes and spending the same amount once they have the product as they did for the 4 years before that. So it really is like leasing a vehicle for 10 years, paying for it for 10 years, but not having it delivered until 4 years after you started paying for it. Sure you get bits and pieces...so instead of delivering the car, they can send you pictures every month of what it looks like until they actually deliver it.
YOu have to kep the taxes and fees going in order to continue those subsidies. I mean, this is not a rocket science, but I will say they could have avoided all of this crap if they had just gone single payer with a simple VAT tax.
The democrats, when given the chance, explain things just fine. The problem is two-fold.
First you have a large segment of the media that allows factually incorrect information to be portrayed as valid. Example, there is already language in the bill passed by the Senate that disallows federal funds from being spent on abortion. It's there, really, starts on page 118 and runs for a couple of pages with details. But the way the media has reported it, you'd never know that.
Second, you have a citizenry that tends to believe what they hear on TV without bothering to look it up for themselves. In fact, oftentimes they don't even know HOW to look it up. We are also plagued with a large number of people who see the world in black and white, and couldn't if their lives depended understand nuanced and complex issues. So the soundbites always win, whether they are accurate or not. Example, People grasp "death panel" it's simple, clean absolute. But they don't understand "Medicare will be required to pay for a voluntary end of life counseling session once every five years, such session to include discussion of living wills, powers of attorney and other mechanisms to ensure that the patient gets the kind of care he wants right up to the very end." See, that's WAY too complicated of a thought for many to want to take in and understand - they prefer the soundbites that they don;t have to actually think about.
Almost everyone seems to accept that taxes might go to things, such as war, that are not of their choice because taxes pay for the general costs and maintenence of society. If you don't like where your taxes go, you have the politcal right to influence those decisions. Pro fetus groups can attest to this.
Take for example, the highway system. Mostly it is free to all drivers when they use the highway. All taxpayers pay for it, however. Even people that don't drive pay for it. Is this unfair? Well even if you don't drive, you benifit from living somewhere that is connected with the transportation grid.
The alternative would be system where you pay part of the total cost to a for profit corporation everytime you use the highway system. Would you prefer this?
The same with health care. In general we are more healthy and productive if everyone has access to affordable health care because we are not a bunch of little islands.
If you don't like being FORCED to buy something, maybe you should vent your anger at conservatives and insurance lobbyist that have prevented us from finding a way to directly fund what is necessary for the maintenance of our society - our health. If we can do this with highways, we can do this with health.
Well now wait a minute here eb. I do agree with you that health care is important, and I would like to see everyone have insurance. However, to simply put blame on a certain political group or lobbyists is way off base. We can directly fund what is necessary - but the problem is the majority of people who you want to have this insurance are not actually adding anything into the fund in the first place.
If we (hypothetically obviously) modified the system to provide health care to only those people who actually put money into the federal income tax system, you don't think we'd be able to use that pool to provide the insurance to all those people? Of course we could. The problem arises when you start spending that money on sources that do not provide anything to the pool. Sure, we all know there are cases and circumstances that should be seen - mentally disabled, the physically disabled, temporarily out of work for no more than a few months, etc. But you know, and I know, that there are millions and millions of people who get free health care benefits funded by state and federal governments that do not, and have no intention of contributing to the pool as a whole.
Personally, I think we should make health care available, even as a subsidy - but you should have to earn it. Obama has touted his wants for people to contribute to society and communities...why would it be so much to ask for to have those who are going to be eligible for these benefits to earn them by cleaning up litter along the freeways and roads, perhaps do cleaning at public school, etc. Just think, we'd also be saving money by not having to pay people to do those jobs. Win - win.
I have no problem with expecting people on assistance to do something in return, especially if they work toward gaining skills in order to be productive long term.
I don't agree that people who don't have insurance are not adding to the fund because they are unproductive. A lot of young people work but make low wages and cant afford insurance in the current scheme. Others seem healthy and are hoping to dodge the bullit until they get the benifit. Covering everyone as a societal maintanence cost is logical. We do this with national defense, law enforcement, transportation, education, and at times infrastructure.
Neither does all the Fox news Rush Limbauh etc... hysteria, which has a proven track record of distorting the debate.
Ultimately there is a health care reform that covers everyone and lowers the cost. Since we spend so much money per patient right now so ineffeciently, there is a cost savings out there.
What the conservative noise machine doesn't want to acknowledge is that other countries with smaller economies seem to delivery health care more equitably without spending so much per patient. Of course, such an analysis is an anathema to the pro-profit healthcare industry and their libertarian ideologue enablers. Just look at how immature and unprofessionally the fox news crowd has behaved.
The argument about other countries would be more valid if their leaders didn't trek to the US for their procedures..Large like Canada and small like either Iceland or Greenland whose premier was here just a couple weeks or so ago for a procedure he could not get in his own country.
Notice how in other countries with different systems, the wealthy can still go wherever they want to for health care. Money continues to buy them better than average. Its not the end of the world for them. More like business as usual.
I did not say you were distorting things but just pointing out that when sorting this out, uncertainty about the CBO should be compared to the uncertainty of other so called experts. I can't have much confidence in most of the conservative criticisms when they rely on distortion and fear mongering.
Seriously, are we to believe that all the industrial democracies with single payer and subsidized insurance plans have active death panels destroying peoples lives? You would think people in these other countries would be out in the streets (something they often do) fighting for an insurance company takeover of their medical systems.
How often do these same critics discuss how cost have been rising and contue to rise if we do nothing?
I have heard and read that Americans do go overseas for some procedures. I don't hear of them going to government provided health provider countries. They typically go to pay less.
Notice how in other countries with different systems, the wealthy can still go wherever they want to for health care. Money continues to buy them better than average. Its not the end of the world for them. More like business as usual.
I am not sure I get your point. The risk we face here now is that diminishing of the quality of care in pursuit of reform. The quality of care here is second to none. The fear is that that will change with so called health care reform.
I did not say you were distorting things but just pointing out that when sorting this out, uncertainty about the CBO should be compared to the uncertainty of other so called experts. I can't have much confidence in most of the conservative criticisms when they rely on distortion and fear mongering.
All I was doing was referring to what the CBO was saying about its own preliminary estimates! No other experts, no other input. CBO on CBO.
Seriously, are we to believe that all the industrial democracies with single payer and subsidized insurance plans have active death panels destroying peoples lives? You would think people in these other countries would be out in the streets (something they often do) fighting for an insurance company takeover of their medical systems.
I have no idea as I have not examined them closely. I am more than just a little suspicious of the fuzzy descriptions put forward about our own proposed "review panels." I continue as well to hear echos of the president's remark about giving the elderly lady pain pills rather than heart surgery.
How often do these same critics discuss how cost have been rising and contue to rise if we do nothing?
Agree that something should be done. A wholly partisan proposal with tradeoffs,buyouts, protections for favored groups (unions and trial lawyers come to mind), coverage mandates, accounting tricks (ignoring the dr. fix, 10 years of revenue against 6 years of expenses, carve outs, etc. ) is not the way to "transform" healthcare.
Sorry, this got longer than I intended. But I felt each point was important to make.
I have heard and read that Americans do go overseas for some procedures. I don't hear of them going to government provided health provider countries. They typically go to pay less.
What difference does it make. It still says something about our system and the need to do better. If I neet to go somewhere to be able to get something because I can't afford it here, even after buying a plane ticket, that tells me the current systems needs reform.
I am more than just a little suspicious of the fuzzy descriptions put forward about our own proposed "review panels." I continue as well to hear echos of the president's remark about giving the elderly lady pain pills rather than heart surgery.
This sounds more like the kind of treatment many get from their insurance companies. Lets face it, insurance is a kind of socializing of risk, just without the public oversight and with the profit overhead. It should be obvious that such organizations need regulation.
Agree that something should be done. A wholly partisan proposal with tradeoffs,buyouts, protections for favored groups (unions and trial lawyers come to mind), coverage mandates, accounting tricks (ignoring the dr. fix, 10 years of revenue against 6 years of expenses, carve outs, etc. ) is not the way to "transform" healthcare.
I couldn't agree more. The problem has been, in my opinion, that there are strong interests that do not want any reform and furthermore, do not want a serious debate about it. Making the political process and media coverage so disfunctional might work for them and that is not a good sign. We deserve a real debate and discussion on something so important and the media distortions have enabled those who want to derail the debate to score politically. This also reinforces the idea that we the people have little hope of creating government based solutions. Having the ship be so rudderless is just another sign of our modern day decline. The post world war II generation was able to solve problems using government. Nowdays it seems only corporations will be available for solving our problems.
My solution: cut the rhetoric; deal with facts, identify the real issues and develop bipartisan solutions to deal with those issues.
A single payer plan does not mean government control. The government does not necessarily own the hospitals and pay the doctors. It does pay to cover insurance. Other countries also have a highly regulated insurance industry cover everyone like we do with utilities (at least pre enron). Rhetoric aside, other countries have worked a lot of this out to create health care systems that are not examples of government fraud, corruption and waste.
My reason: I cannot point to a single domestic program run by government that performs as intended and at costs that are either projected or reasonable.
No government is not the magical solution but somethings are better managed as a government program with more accountability to we the people. The alternative is privatization which is also not immune to fraud, corruption and waste. It is irresponsible to leave important societal needs to the money makers. Military contractors doing what servicemen used to do is just one example.
And nope, I don't think that too many on the LEFT don't understand this, which is what you implied.
The people who make unfounded personal attacks (insults) instead of discussing the issues would be posters like you and your ilk, weasel.
Pointing how someone was dishonestly portraying something, and not really participating in a fair debate, and then calling them a dishonest hack, is NOT an insult. Calling Son of Sam a murderer is NOT an insult. Calling someone who provides abortions (a legal medical procedure) a murderer IS an insult.
Well, that is demonstrably false.
"The report, the second national scorecard from this influential health policy research group, shows that the United States spends more than twice as much on each person for health care as most other industrialized countries. But it has fallen to last place among those countries in preventing deaths through use of timely and effective medical care, according to the report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York."
You are talking about to different hings here. "Death Panels" was the term coined by Betsy McCaughey to refer to the provision that forced Medicare to pay for VOLUNTARY discussion sessions with your doctor or his staff to talk about things like Living Wills, and Powers of Attorney, how to set them up, what the provisions would mean and how to write them so they accurately describe the patients own wishes regarding end of life care. "Death panel" was sensationalism at it's worst.
The President's remark about giving an elderly woman pain meds instead of surgery was about something else. There, he was referring to the review boards that study protocols and outcomes. If you have an 80 year old woman, with congestive heart failure and a knee that hurts a lot but still functions, you can do one of two things knee replacement surgery or pills and physical therapy. What that review board would do is look at cases like that that have been treated each way and assess the outcomes to predict which is the better way to treat such cases. Oftentimes, the risk of surgery is higher than the expected benefit, but we have been conditioned to believe surgery is always a magic fix and ignore the fact that going into surgery with CHF presents a big risk.
So what Obama was saying was not that we shouldn't give old people medical care because t costs too much, he was saying there may be better ways to deal with certain problems that happen to be cheaper tan surgery, and we need to set up a group to study various methods and outcomes to find out what is best overall instead of just assuming more is better.
This is not a new idea either.
And it's been in the news recently too.
1. As the pioneering country in medicine, it does not surprise me that costs are higher. Generic equipment, drugs and the like are indeed cheaper elsewhere because the research and the breakthroughs are overwhelmingly more likely to be here than elsewhere--anywhere. Remember just a few days ago, a story passing wires that the premier from somewhere came here for a procedure because either he could not get it in his home country or had to wait much longer than he wanted to. There are costs associated with that and with being leading edge in procedures, technology and drugs.
2. I remember the lady and the exchange. I also remember the president saying,at the same time, that it were his grandmother, he would do anything for her. I find those two statements almost irreconcilable on a personal basis. The issue for me is that as a government,interested in cutting costs, limiting procedures will impact the quality of health. I do not want government any closer than it now is (pre heathcare reform) to being included in the discussion between the physician the the patient and or the patient's family. I am all for better care at a cheaper price. I am not for government entities that can by decision unilaterally comprise the quality of care that patients receive.
That is also false. In one peer reviewed study comparing Canada and the US, it was found that Canada had just as much innovation as the US.
And I am really sick of posters using anecdotes to prove a point. Maybe some premier came here because we had better procedures in a certain field. That hardly makes the case for all fields, let alone all people, many in the US who cannot even get access to basic services offered in third world countries.
Who and where? I'm throwing the BS flag. Lets see some links or articles on this whopper. Last time I checked there was "basic" services in every county in America. If the person can't get access, then it is because they either don't want to or care.
1) The topic is whether or not it's a revenue loser because of the upfront payment of some taxes. It's not, and the saving for a car analogy works just fine to describe that process.
2) No one has said that the CBO numbers are going to be the exact amount that will be saved. It's a comparison between the costs and savings from doing nothing and doing something. Any other 'argument' about this is a strawman one. And you know that, weasel, since you so often make bogus arguments about the CBO numbers that are debunked.
You should read my response, especially to your second comment, the last time you made it. One as I remember you seemed to have not been able to come up with a sizzling retort, or any retort at all. I truly wish you would develop some new catch words and phrases.
What response to my second comment? What second comment? WHEN did I LAST make it?
What the heck does "One as I remember you seemed to have not been able to come up with a sizzling retort" mean in English?
And I BET you wish I would say different things to you. I know it's frustrating to you to have your bogus talking points refuted time and again. I understand that you don't like being made a fool of. Too bad, so sad. You'd like to be respected and listened to for your ideas. Then stop with the nonsense. You'd like me to say different stuff. Then stop with the same old baloney all the time.
You aren't a victim here. Just like an oft-convicted criminal has no business complaining that he keeps being sentenced to jail, and he HATES hearing the judge continue to say that, and he wishes the judge would say something else, YOU control your behavior. Change YOUR behavior, and my responses to you will change also. UNTIL you change YOUR behavior, you have NO justification in whining about my responses to you.
Provisions preventing denial based on pre-existing conditions
Extend dependant coverage up to age 26
Making rescission illegal
Eliminating lifetime caps
Cap insurance company expenditure on non-medical expenses.
None of those cost the government anything to implement.
And your going to tell me that the Gov't is going to control medical costs more efficiently. Yea, right.
If you are living pay check to pay check and can't afford health care insurance now, HOW are you going to make the FORCED payments to get health insurance? Keep in mind that you won't receive your subsidised rebate until AFTER you have paid in.