The CBO's Fuzzy ObamaCare Math

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) letter to House Speaker John Boehner says that the health law spends $780 billion in the next decade and pays for it by raising taxes and fees by $410 billion, and by reducing future Medicare funding by $500 billion. The CBO argues that the law raises more money ($910 billion) than it spends, but that is hardly sufficient reason to keep it, or any law, says Betsy McCaughey, chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York.

Amazingly, only 3 percent more people will have private health insurance in 2014 than would have it if the law hadn't passed.

But a staggering 85.2 million people will be on public insurance -- Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).

That is 31 percent of nonelderly Americans.

The new law stipulates that Medicaid must provide the same health benefits that employers will have to provide for their workers. To expand Medicaid, the law eviscerates Medicare. It is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, only it's robbing Grandma and Grandpa. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) shows that in 2019 the Obama health law reduces annual Medicare funding so much that it works out to $1,428 less for each elderly patient that year. Richard Foster, chief actuary for Medicare, has spoken with brave bluntness about the possible impact, warning that some hospitals may stop accepting Medicare, says McCaughey.

Source: Betsy McCaughey, "The CBO's Fuzzy ObamaCare Math," Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2011.

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