The political world waited with rapt attention Wednesday for the oracles at the Congressional Budget Office to release their cost-and-coverage predictions for the revised House health reform bill. CBO confirmed that the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is a major fiscal dividend, cutting taxes by $992 billion, spending by $1.1 trillion, and the deficit by $119 billion over 10 years. However, CBO says 14 million fewer people on net would be insured in 2018 relative to the ObamaCare status quo, rising to 23 million in 2026. The problem with this educated guess about enrollment is that CBO’s models put too much confidence in the effectiveness of central planning. CBO’s projections about ObamaCare enrollment are consistently too high and discredited by reality year after year.
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