When ObamaCare was being debated, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the law would lower the deficit by $124 billion dollars. CBO has now released more numbers providing new context to that number. ObamaCare will raise taxes by $525 billion and increase spending by $401 billion over the next ten years. This represents a massive increase in the size of government.
“From 1990 to 1995, we served as public trustees for Social Security and
Medicare. As a Democrat and a Republican (now an independent), we worked
together on a professional and nonpartisan basis with the other trustees – the
secretaries of health and human services, labor and Treasury – to ensure the
integrity and credibility of the annual reports on these critically important
social insurance programs. [T]he conclusions expressed in this year’s Medicare
report were, to our minds, based on unreasonable assumptions that produced
unrealistic and misleading results. The unwarrantedly optimistic report could
produce a serious misunderstanding of the true financial condition of Medicare
and result in significant public confusion.”
ObamaCare supporters are abandoning their campaign to tout the law, instead advising lawmakers running for reelection to promise to “improve it.” Their polling shows that Americans have not been persuaded by advocates’ claims that the law will lower costs or reduce deficits.
The outside groups that championed ObamaCare and continue to campaign on its behalf are admitting defeat behind closed doors when it comes to claims that the law will lower costs. “The presentation also concedes that the fiscal and economic arguments that were the White House’s first and most aggressive sales pitch have essentially failed.”
ObamaCare promises painless cuts to Medicare through savings reached via Accountable Care Organizations. These ACOs will not be successful, because they rely on heavy-handed, bureaucratic control of doctors and patients.“Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are the latest fad. They were even included in the newly passed health reform bill, whose backers expect ACOs to raise the quality and lower the cost of patient care at the same time. Detractors, on the other hand, describe them as ‘HMOs on steroids.’”
Medicare and the other entitlement programs are putting our fiscal future in danger. ObamaCare includes $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, but Medicare’s Chief Actuary doesn’t believe they’ll ever happen. “This led Foster to his central argument:. Rather than face the draconian consequences of its decisions, Congress will step in to prevent the cuts and restore services… Health care reform was sold to Congress as an act of fiscal prudence. It’s beginning to look more like an exercise in profligate spending.”
Medicare spending is growing rapidly, and ObamaCare will do nothing to slow it. The two main reforms, Accountable Care Organizations and the Independent Payment Advisory Board, are poorly constructed and won’t result in significant savings. Only real, market-driven reforms will be able to lower the growth rate.
“Obamacare’s apologists would like Americans to believe they have set in motion a sophisticated and carefully considered plan to slow cost growth in Medicare — and the rest of the health system for that matter. But the truth is that all they have done is put into law a formulaic requirement for deeper price cuts in Medicare. That’s it. Presto! Problem solved! But of course, the problem is not solved. Arbitrary price controls always and everywhere drive out willing suppliers of services. Who will see Medicare patients at 33 cents on the dollar?”
With ObamaCare unlikely to be repealed until 2013 at the earliest, the promising tactic to defeat it is through defunding implementation. “Should Republicans regain control of Congress, they could theoretically use their new power of the purse to deny Obama the funding needed to administer his signature accomplishment. This prospect is already gaining steam among opponents of the law. The new group DeFundit.org has gotten more than 90 candidates and current members of Congress to sign a pledge supporting stripping ObamaCare of money.”
The Medicare Trustees issued their annual report outlining the financial status of Medicare last week. At the end of the document was a formal rebuke from the chief Medicare actuary, casting doubt on the rosy portrayal of the main report. “It is difficult to overstate how unusual this development is. The normal process with the annual Trustees’ Reports is for the Trustees to develop and publish the best available projections for the future finances of Social Security and Medicare. The respective Social Security and Medicare actuaries then sign a pro forma blessing of those projections, which is tacked to the back of the report when released to the public.”