Health Care Reform is Likely to Add Billions to Federal Budget Deficits
Removing the potentially unrealistic annual savings, reflecting the full costs of implementing the programs, acknowledging the unlikelihood of raising all of the promised revenues, and preserving premiums for the programs they are intended to finance produces a radically different bottom line… A more comprehensive and realistic projection suggests that the new reform law will raise the deficit by more than $500 billion during the first ten years and by nearly $1.5 trillion in the following decade.
Full Health Affairs article by Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Michael J. Ramlet here.
As I recall, early estimates by Stephen Parente and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota, suggests a cost of $3-to-$3.5 trillion for the first decade.
This is going to be surprising to no one outside of Washington DC. The polls have consistently shown that the general public never bought into all the ridiculous claims about ObmamaCare saving money and reducing the deficit.
You didn’t mention that Holtz-Eakin is the former head of CBO. So we can probably treat this as a CBO forecast without the political pressure from Congress and the Administration.
Good point, Ken.