CBO Shows ObamaCare Costing Less Than Projected–Ignore Conservative Attempts To Distort The Data

There was more good news from the Congressional Budget Office today regarding the Affordable Care Act. The latest’s estimates significantly reduce the costs of expanding medical care under the law:

 The Congressional Budget Office on Monday significantly lowered its estimate of the cost of providing health insurance coverage to millions of Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

Douglas W. Elmendorf, the director of the budget office, said the changes resulted from many factors, including a general “slowdown in the growth of health care costs” and lower projections of insurance premiums that are subsidized by the federal government.

In March 2010, when President Obama signed the health care law, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the expansion of coverage would cost the federal government $710 billion in the fiscal years 2015 through 2019, Mr. Elmendorf said.

“The newest projections indicate that those provisions will cost $571 billion over that same period, a reduction of 20 percent,” he said. The Affordable Care Act not only subsidized the purchase of private insurance, but also authorized a major expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people.

As usual, conservatives are cherry picking and distorting the numbers to portray this as a negative. Among other distortions of the facts, they fail to take into account the fact that having a substantial portion of the country be uninsured results in higher costs for both government programs, as well as costs which are passed on to those who do pay for insurance. The bottom line is that, even before these more favorable numbers, the CBO found that the Affordable Care Act results in a reduction in the deficit. Strange that conservatives who place such a high priority on reducing the deficit (which was run up by Republicans during the Bush years) oppose a program which will help reduce the deficit.

Of course if conservatives are unhappy with the cost of the Affordable Care Act, they should keep in mind the fact that costs are much higher due than they otherwise might be due to providing coverage through private insurance companies rather than through a single-payer system modeled on Medicare. Somehow I doubt many conservatives would go for the far more cost effective single-payer model.

Conservatives are also attacking the law because, while reducing the number of uninsured by 27 million people, there will still be 31 million uninsured in 2025. However, when looking at who will remain uninsured, I wonder which group conservatives are complaining about. Of this 31 million, 30 percent are illegal aliens and conservatives would sure protest if health care coverage were extended to them. Another 1o percent are ineligible for coverage because of living in states which did not expand Medicaid–a decision which conservatives support. The remainder are people who will qualify for coverage but choose not to purchase it.

The number of uninsured might fall as more red states go along with the expanded Medicaid program. It was just announced that Indiana is the latest to offer the expanded Medicaid program.

5 Comments

  1. 1
    David Duff says:

    I know nearly as little about Obamacare as the goofballs and dummies in your Congress who voted for it.  It is sufficient for me to know that the government has a large, controlling hand in it and therefore it will be a cock-up!  However, in carefully selecting your extracts from the CBO report you seem to have missed this:

    “The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That’s 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected.”

    Well, that nice Mr. Gruber knew that was a likely outcome but, er, he wasn’t telling!

    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/01/ten_times_more_americans_than_first_estimated_will_lose_employerbased_health_insurance_under_obamacare_cbo.html#ixzz3Q7gg5FnB

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    More right wing spin. That is not necessarily a bad finding. Many do think it would be desirable to totally get away from employer-based insurance. Many people get a better deal from the exchanges, and therefore it only makes sense to obtain such coverage. Plus many people are in the job trap in this country–working at their current companies purely to keep their insurance as they previously were unable to obtain insurance on the individual market. Having this alternative gives people much more choice than the had in the past.

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    “I know nearly as little about Obamacare…”

    Of course you prefer to follow right wing talking points, even when you admit you are unaware of the facts. Therefore you can ignore key facts such as that Obamacare is working out even better than predicted, lowering the cost of health care coverage, lowering the deficit, and helping business.

  4. 4
    David Duff says:

    Well, I follow your, er, ‘talking points’ too, even if they do make me snigger!

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    Except that my “talking points” are based upon the actual facts, along with personal experience of the benefits of the law, but then we know you never let the facts get in the way of your biases.

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