CBO boosts its Obamacare Medicaid cost estimate

I’ve already noted in a separate post that new Congressional Budget Office projections show President Obama’s health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years, rather than the $940 billion originally advertised. But there are lots of other moving parts in the CBO’s updated estimates that are worth deeper elaboration.

The big picture takeaway is that due mostly to weaker economic projections, the CBO now projects that more people will be obtaining insurance through Medicaid than it estimated a year ago at a greater cost to the government, but fewer people will be getting insurance through their employers or the health care law’s new subsidized insurance exchanges. Overall spending will be higher than estimated a year ago, but increased revenue from penalties and taxes will more than offset this. Also interesting: CBO now expects two million fewer people to be covered as a result of the health care law than previously projected.

It’s worth keeping in mind that what the CBO did today was update its forecasts for the cost of expanding insurance coverage under the health care law. That represents, by far, the bulk of the spending in the legislation, but it doesn’t constitute a full rescoring of the law or a revised deficit estimate. That would have to include estimates for all the taxes, Medicare cuts and other spending in the law. Also, the $1.76 trillion cited above is for the years 2013 through 2022, but if we want to compare changes to last year’s estimates, we have to use the comparable years of 2012 through 2021. (Estimates for 2022 only became available today.)

The CBO now projects that from 2012 through 2021 the federal government will spend $168 billion more on Medicaid than it expected last year, $97 billion less on subsidies for people to purchase insurance on government-run exchanges and $20 billion less on tax credits to small employers. That works out to a $51 billion increase in the gross cost of expanding coverage from what the CBO estimated a year ago. However, the CBO also expects the federal government to collect more revenue from penalties on individuals and employers, as well as other taxes. These revenue increases will more than offset the spending increases, according to the CBO, so it now expects the cost of Obamacare during those years to be $48 billion lower.

"We have to pass this bill to find out what's in it": http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...stimate/425966

Best intentions I suppose........................................... ...... Looking forward to hearing the exteme left wing position / talking points on the CBO findings.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8EDJ0I20120314

UPDATE 2-CBO cuts cost estimate for Obama healthcare law

Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:27pm EDT
* CBO sees lower 10-year cost for health insurance provisions

* Fewer Americans would get private coverage in new estimate

* FY 2012 U.S. deficit seen rising to $1.171 trillion - CBO

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - The estimated net costs of expanding healthcare coverage under President Barack Obama's landmark restructuring have been reduced by $48 billion through 2021, though fewer people would be covered under private insurance plans, a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed on Tuesday.

The CBO also revised its overall federal budget deficit estimates to show a $92 billion increase in the projected fiscal gap for 2012, confirming a fourth straight year of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

The CBO revisions gave ammunition to both Democrats, who largely support Obama's controversial 2010 healthcare law, and to Republicans, who staunchly oppose it. The law will take center stage later this month when the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a challenge of its constitutionality.

By reducing the estimated net 2012-2021 costs to $1.083 trillion from $1.131 trillion a year ago, the CBO report could help Democrats blunt some of the criticism over the high costs of extending coverage to some 47 million uninsured Americans, as they try to tout savings elsewhere in the law.

These cost reductions are largely due to lower estimates for subsidies and tax credits associated with the law's planned insurance exchanges for individual coverage.

They also include higher revenues from penalties and the tax effects of higher taxable income, as private employers drop health insurance plans in favor of extra compensation for employees to buy insurance via the exchanges.

But the analysis also projected that some 4 million fewer people will obtain insurance through employers or through the insurance exchanges promoted by the healthcare law by 2016 than estimated a year ago.

Many of those people will need to be covered by government-run Medicaid program for the poor, causing higher Medicaid costs to eat into savings elsewhere.

The CBO also added another year to its overall cost estimate for the insurance provisions, extending it out to 2022, for an 11-year net cost of $1.252 billion.

Before the revenue and tax effects, the gross cost for that period hits a new high: $1.762 trillion, and Republicans wasted little time in pouncing on it and the lower coverage estimate.

"The fact that the outlook for the new law continues to worsen so rapidly, even before it's implemented, is ominous," said Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Many of the healthcare law's coverage provisions do not go into effect until 2014.

Intestesting to see that it is partisan politics. Fits you to a tee - a rigid extreme left wing ideologue. Very dangerous to America!!!

The bottom line is that we WILL pay more for the collectivism Obama promotes. OK, I use "we" loosely. About 50% of us WILL pay more for collectivism (aka socialism). Thank you Obama for raiding my children's future!!

Damn Marxist Volcker. :)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1345798.html


Business News
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said on Wednesday that Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs executive director who dramatically announced his resignation in a New York Times op-ed, is right that Goldman Sachs has changed for the worse over the past decade.

Volcker, who served as an economic adviser to President Obama, said at The Atlantic's Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., that when Goldman Sachs went public in 1999, it "became a trading operation," which hurt clients and the economy at large.

"That changed the mentality, I'm afraid," Volcker said about Goldman Sachs. "It's a business that leads to a lot of conflicts of interest."

Smith wrote in his op-ed on Wednesday that he is quitting because over the past 12 years, Goldman Sachs has become too concerned with maximizing profits often at the expense of its clients.

At the conference, Volcker said that Wall Street's general shift toward speculation in the early 2000s damaged the economy.

"These were brilliant years for Wall Street from one perspective," Volcker said. "Were they brilliant years for the economy? Well, there's no evidence of that."

Volcker pointed out that as banks profited, workers did not become more productive, and there was "virtually no increase" in average household income when adjusted for inflation. This led to an "imbalanced economy," he said.

The existence of $60 trillion in credit default swaps globally to insure $6 trillion of global debt during the financial crisis "suggests there was something going on here that didn’t have a connection to the real economy," Volcker said. It was "like a casino," and "when the system came under pressure, it collapsed," he said.

The languishing of the economy during the early 2000s as the financial industry profited is evidence supporting the Volcker rule, the controversial part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that prohibits banks from trading with their own money, Volcker said.

"I hope reform will make a little progress and do a little rebalancing of incentives in the financial system," Volcker said. He hopes that financial reform will spur commercial banks to return to the "old-fashioned concerns" of taking care of customer deposits, he added.

This is not the first time that Volcker has spoken out about Goldman. A 1998 New York Times story about Goldman Sachs' making millions off the Russian government included this comment: "Today's bankers often don't have long-lasting concerns about customer-client relations,'' said Volcker, who was an occasional adviser to Russian government officials. ''You just do the deal and get out.''

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Havakasha

Damn Marxist Volcker. :)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1345798.html


Business News
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said on Wednesday that Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs executive director who dramatically announced his resignation in a New York Times op-ed, is right that Goldman Sachs has changed for the worse over the past decade.

Volcker, who served as an economic adviser to President Obama, said at The Atlantic's Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., that when Goldman Sachs went public in 1999, it "became a trading operation," which hurt clients and the economy at large.

"That changed the mentality, I'm afraid," Volcker said about Goldman Sachs. "It's a business that leads to a lot of conflicts of interest."

Smith wrote in his op-ed on Wednesday that he is quitting because over the past 12 years, Goldman Sachs has become too concerned with maximizing profits often at the expense of its clients.

At the conference, Volcker said that Wall Street's general shift toward speculation in the early 2000s damaged the economy.

"These were brilliant years for Wall Street from one perspective," Volcker said. "Were they brilliant years for the economy? Well, there's no evidence of that."

Volcker pointed out that as banks profited, workers did not become more productive, and there was "virtually no increase" in average household income when adjusted for inflation. This led to an "imbalanced economy," he said.

The existence of $60 trillion in credit default swaps globally to insure $6 trillion of global debt during the financial crisis "suggests there was something going on here that didn’t have a connection to the real economy," Volcker said. It was "like a casino," and "when the system came under pressure, it collapsed," he said.

The languishing of the economy during the early 2000s as the financial industry profited is evidence supporting the Volcker rule, the controversial part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that prohibits banks from trading with their own money, Volcker said.

"I hope reform will make a little progress and do a little rebalancing of incentives in the financial system," Volcker said. He hopes that financial reform will spur commercial banks to return to the "old-fashioned concerns" of taking care of customer deposits, he added.

This is not the first time that Volcker has spoken out about Goldman. A 1998 New York Times story about Goldman Sachs' making millions off the Russian government included this comment: "Today's bankers often don't have long-lasting concerns about customer-client relations,'' said Volcker, who was an occasional adviser to Russian government officials. ''You just do the deal and get out.''

---

Perfect response to one who is concerned with his children's futures.................... A perfect example of self indulged idealism. Nothing else matters............... It is dangerous to America.

Unfortunately lies are too often posted here and passed of as fact.
Check out how the original article was just plain wrong.

No, Obamacare's Cost Didn't Just Double. Sigh.
Jonathan CohnMarch 15, 2012 | 9:40 am 12 comments

Sorting through the deceptive attacks on health care reform gets old, even for me. But on Wednesday the Republicans and their allies made a claim so obviously misleading that they, and the media outlets parroting them, must have known they spreading false information.

The basis for the claim is the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections for the Affordable Care Act, which critics (and I!) like to call Obamacare. When Congress first passed the law, in the spring of 2010, CBO made official estimates of how much the law would cost, how many people would get insurance as a result, and so on. It updated that estimate one year later and has, now, updated it one more time.

The CBO distributed its report in the morning and, by 11 a.m., Republican offices on Capitol Hill were spitting out press releases about it. According to the Republicans, CBO had discovered that Obamacare was going to cost $1.76 trillion over the next ten years. “The CBO’s revised cost estimate indicates that this massive government intrusion into America’s health care system will be far more costly than was originally claimed,” Tom Price, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said. Within a few hours, both Fox News and the Washington Times were carrying online stories making the same claim. According to the Fox News account, CBO was “showing that the bill is substantially more expensive – twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.”

If CBO had truly determined that health care reform’s cost will be twice the original estimates, it would be huge news. But CBO said nothing of the sort.


Continue reading: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-coh...uble-price-fox

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...ref=fpnewsfeed
An ‘Obamacare’ Cost Explosion? Hardly — GOP Distorts CBO Report

SAHIL KAPUR MARCH 15, 2012, 2:09 PM 3804 31
Republicans and conservative media are cherry-picking a figure in a new Congressional Budget Office spending estimate (PDF) to assert that the cost of “Obamacare” has nearly doubled to $1.76 trillion. But the claim ignores the corresponding savings during the additional period of the spending projection, thus distorting the actual cost estimates of the law.

“The new CBO projection estimates that the law will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years — well above the $940 billion Democrats originally claimed,” Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the No. 4 House Republican, declared in a press advisory. The powerful Energy & Commerce Committee said the CBO report “reveal[s] a shocking new sticker price of $1.8 trillion.”

Fox News and other conservative outlets have trumpeted the out-of-context number as vindication for those who warned it’ll cost far more than advertised.

CBO’s actual revised estimate is that the “gross costs of the coverage provisions,” — the money used to provide people Medicaid or private insurance — has risen by about $50 billion over the 2012-2021 period since its previous estimate, from $1.445 trillion to $1.496 trillion. That’s the only relevant change to spending projections in the report.

So where are conservatives getting the idea that the cost of the law doubled? When it passed in 2010, CBO said its 10-year outlays would be about $940 billion. But because the law isn’t set to be fully implemented until 2014, when the coverage expansion takes effect, that initial estimate included several years in which the law cost very little. Now that it’s 2012, CBO’s 10-year outlook captures more years during which the law will be in full effect. The law’s price tag appears higher, but its costs in no way doubled.

Conservatives, however, want to use the effect of this sliding window to make it appear as if the health care law is a budget buster. But this latest CBO report focuses exclusively on the law’s spending provisions, and ignores its savings — the taxes and spending cuts, that also mostly take effect in 2014.

Indeed, CBO still holds that the law reduces the deficit by billions of dollars over 10 years. That’s just not in this report.

“CBO and JCT have not estimated the budgetary effects in 2022 of the other provisions of the ACA; over the 2012-2021 period, those other provisions were previously estimated to reduce budget deficits,” the CBO report reads.

All of which means that the cost projections have only experienced minor changes in the CBO report, a far cry from the conservative claims that the Affordable Care Act’s price tag has skyrocketed or doubled.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Havakasha

Unfortunately lies are too often posted here and passed of as fact.
Check out how the original article was just plain wrong.

No, Obamacare's Cost Didn't Just Double. Sigh.
Jonathan CohnMarch 15, 2012 | 9:40 am 12 comments

Sorting through the deceptive attacks on health care reform gets old, even for me. But on Wednesday the Republicans and their allies made a claim so obviously misleading that they, and the media outlets parroting them, must have known they spreading false information.

The basis for the claim is the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections for the Affordable Care Act, which critics (and I!) like to call Obamacare. When Congress first passed the law, in the spring of 2010, CBO made official estimates of how much the law would cost, how many people would get insurance as a result, and so on. It updated that estimate one year later and has, now, updated it one more time.

The CBO distributed its report in the morning and, by 11 a.m., Republican offices on Capitol Hill were spitting out press releases about it. According to the Republicans, CBO had discovered that Obamacare was going to cost $1.76 trillion over the next ten years. “The CBO’s revised cost estimate indicates that this massive government intrusion into America’s health care system will be far more costly than was originally claimed,” Tom Price, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said. Within a few hours, both Fox News and the Washington Times were carrying online stories making the same claim. According to the Fox News account, CBO was “showing that the bill is substantially more expensive – twice as much as the original $900 billion price tag.”

If CBO had truly determined that health care reform’s cost will be twice the original estimates, it would be huge news. But CBO said nothing of the sort.


Continue reading: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-coh...uble-price-fox

---

You might know best about liberal lies............... Rigid ideology is dangerous to America.

i always love those who are oblivious about their penchant for projecting their own personal qualities on to other people. Psychology 101. Serously laughable..

Once again.





So where are conservatives getting the idea that the cost of the law doubled? When it passed in 2010, CBO said its 10-year outlays would be about $940 billion. But because the law isn’t set to be fully implemented until 2014, when the coverage expansion takes effect, that initial estimate included several years in which the law cost very little. Now that it’s 2012, CBO’s 10-year outlook captures more years during which the law will be in full effect. The law’s price tag appears higher, but its costs in no way doubled.

Conservatives, however, want to use the effect of this sliding window to make it appear as if the health care law is a budget buster. But this latest CBO report focuses exclusively on the law’s spending provisions, and ignores its savings — the taxes and spending cuts, that also mostly take effect in 2014.

Indeed, CBO still holds that the law reduces the deficit by billions of dollars over 10 years. That’s just not in this report.

“CBO and JCT have not estimated the budgetary effects in 2022 of the other provisions of the ACA; over the 2012-2021 period, those other provisions were previously estimated to reduce budget deficits,” the CBO report reads.

All of which means that the cost projections have only experienced minor changes in the CBO report, a far cry from the conservative claims that the Affordable Care Act’s price tag has skyrocketed or doubled

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Havakasha

Once again.

So where are conservatives getting the idea that the cost of the law doubled? When it passed in 2010, CBO said its 10-year outlays would be about $940 billion. But because the law isn’t set to be fully implemented until 2014, when the coverage expansion takes effect, that initial estimate included several years in which the law cost very little. Now that it’s 2012, CBO’s 10-year outlook captures more years during which the law will be in full effect. The law’s price tag appears higher, but its costs in no way doubled.

Conservatives, however, want to use the effect of this sliding window to make it appear as if the health care law is a budget buster. But this latest CBO report focuses exclusively on the law’s spending provisions, and ignores its savings — the taxes and spending cuts, that also mostly take effect in 2014.

Indeed, CBO still holds that the law reduces the deficit by billions of dollars over 10 years. That’s just not in this report.

“CBO and JCT have not estimated the budgetary effects in 2022 of the other provisions of the ACA; over the 2012-2021 period, those other provisions were previously estimated to reduce budget deficits,” the CBO report reads.

All of which means that the cost projections have only experienced minor changes in the CBO report, a far cry from the conservative claims that the Affordable Care Act’s price tag has skyrocketed or doubled

---

Once again, the liberal spin machine on high. Change the context, but not the facts. Laughable and totally disengenuine. It is crazy what lengths the liberals will go to support their beliefs.

Remember, we need to read to find out what's in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To. Well, now we are finding out the true costs, and don't think for one phucking millisecond that it's going down.

Go back to work. Your losing your cool and your arguments.





http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...ref=fpnewsfeed
An ‘Obamacare’ Cost Explosion? Hardly — GOP Distorts CBO Report

SAHIL KAPUR MARCH 15, 2012, 2:09 PM 3804 31
Republicans and conservative media are cherry-picking a figure in a new Congressional Budget Office spending estimate (PDF) to assert that the cost of “Obamacare” has nearly doubled to $1.76 trillion. But the claim ignores the corresponding savings during the additional period of the spending projection, thus distorting the actual cost estimates of the law.

“The new CBO projection estimates that the law will cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years — well above the $940 billion Democrats originally claimed,” Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the No. 4 House Republican, declared in a press advisory. The powerful Energy & Commerce Committee said the CBO report “reveal[s] a shocking new sticker price of $1.8 trillion.”

Fox News and other conservative outlets have trumpeted the out-of-context number as vindication for those who warned it’ll cost far more than advertised.

CBO’s actual revised estimate is that the “gross costs of the coverage provisions,” — the money used to provide people Medicaid or private insurance — has risen by about $50 billion over the 2012-2021 period since its previous estimate, from $1.445 trillion to $1.496 trillion. That’s the only relevant change to spending projections in the report.

So where are conservatives getting the idea that the cost of the law doubled? When it passed in 2010, CBO said its 10-year outlays would be about $940 billion. But because the law isn’t set to be fully implemented until 2014, when the coverage expansion takes effect, that initial estimate included several years in which the law cost very little. Now that it’s 2012, CBO’s 10-year outlook captures more years during which the law will be in full effect. The law’s price tag appears higher, but its costs in no way doubled.

Conservatives, however, want to use the effect of this sliding window to make it appear as if the health care law is a budget buster. But this latest CBO report focuses exclusively on the law’s spending provisions, and ignores its savings — the taxes and spending cuts, that also mostly take effect in 2014.

Indeed, CBO still holds that the law reduces the deficit by billions of dollars over 10 years. That’s just not in this report.

“CBO and JCT have not estimated the budgetary effects in 2022 of the other provisions of the ACA; over the 2012-2021 period, those other provisions were previously estimated to reduce budget deficits,” the CBO report reads.

All of which means that the cost projections have only experienced minor changes in the CBO report, a far cry from the conservative claims that the Affordable Care Act’s price tag has skyrocketed or doubled.