Federal spending on major health care programs will jump by $104 billion, or 11.1%, this year, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates published on Monday.
Those figures include a $24 billion increase stemming from a shift in the timing of certain Medicare payments from 2017 into 2016. Today’s CBO figures are a detailed version of the broader estimates published last week.
The nonpartisan CBO projected in its 2016-2026 Budget and Economic Outlook that spending on federal health programs will make up 5.5% of the country’s gross domestic product this year, and reach 6.6% by the end of 2026.
The House GOP emerged from its retreat earlier this month united in its goal to come up with an alternative to Obamacare. But the deeper into health policy the members dig, the more difficult finding consensus will become.
Republicans have determined that they will select pieces of different GOP proposals rather than simply put forth one of the party’s old plans as its main health proposal. The older conservative health plans are unworkable in a post-ACA world.
For the first time, Congress is passing a bill to gut ObamaCare and sending it to President Barack Obama’s desk. That vote occurs Wednesday in the House, after the Senate passed the package last month.
The bill awaits a veto, as both parties have always known. Even so, the final Affordable Care Act repeal package reflects the results of a long, careful drafting process that, for Republicans, undoes as much of ObamaCare as possible.
Republicans tout the bill as a concrete example of what would be accomplished under a Republican president, acknowledging that Obama will never sign a repeal of his signature domestic policy. This bill, they say, paves a path forward to a life without the ACA in 2017.
A bill intended to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood would now decrease the deficit by about $553 billion, should it become law.
The legislation would save about $318 billion without macroeconomic benefits between 2016 and 2025, according to an updated score of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The House voted 318-109 to send a $680 billion tax-extenders bill to the Senate, which is expected to approve the legislation alongside the omnibus spending measure. The tax legislation, which would make permanent some tax credits and extend several others, is the product of a deal reached by Democratic and Republican leaders earlier this week.
“With this tax bill, families and businesses are going to have the long-term certainty that they need, instead of scrambling year after year to find out what’s next,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters on Thursday before the vote.
Since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, the number of hospital merger and acquisition deals jumped from 52 in 2009 to more than 100 in 2014, according to Irving Levin Associates. But the economic evidence suggests consolidation drives costs up, not down – and may even hurt patient care. Two thorough literature reviews, from 2006 and 2012, found that hospital consolidation generally results in higher prices. And when hospitals merged in already concentrated markets, the price increase was dramatic, often exceeding 20%. If policymakers don’t find more ways to inject competition into hospital markets soon, bigger price increases are likely waiting just a few years down the road.