Good News: ObamaCare to Cost 3 Times More than First Thought

 

 

M2RB:  The Eagles

 

 

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Punishment for the foreseeable, inevitable results of Obamacare should be bankruptcy, imprisonment, public shaming, and permanent relegation to the worst of the worst of American healthcare -- Medicaid -- for all of its advocates.

 

 

 

 

By Rick Moran

 

 

The Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee released a nifty little chart showing the progressively more dire estimates for the cost of ObamaCare over a decade.

 

 

President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: “Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.” Adding up all the different spending provisions in the health care law, however, (including closing the Medicare ‘donut hole,’ implementation costs, and other spending) total gross spending over the FY 2010–19 period is about $1.4 trillion, based on CBO estimates,” the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff explains. “And most of the major spending provisions in the law do not even take effect until 2014. Congressional Democrats delayed these provisions in order to show only six years of spending under the plan in the original 10-year budget window (from FY2010-19) used by CBO at the time the law was enacted. Therefore, the original estimate concealed the fact that most of the law’s spending only doesn’t even begin until four years into the 10-year window. A Senate Budget Committee analysis (based on CBO estimates and growth rates) finds that that total spending under the law will amount to at least $2.6 trillion over a true 10-year period (from FY2014–23)—not $900 billion, as President Obama originally promised.

I know that no one reading this is surprised in the least. The question in my mind is how best to punish those — the president especially — for being such incredible liars. The Democrats in Congress knew exactly what they were doing when they based their projections of ObamaCare’s cost on 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of expenditures. Both the president and congressional Dems aren’t idiots when it comes to history either. No entitlement in history has ever met expectations as far as its cost is concerned. Social Security, Medicare, social welfare programs like food stamps — all far exceeded their original estimated cost. In the case of Medicare, as this Reason article from 1993 points out, the difference in estimated to real costs between 1965 and 1990 either makes one giggle uncontrollably or makes one want to put his fist through the wall:

At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly “conservative” estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion.

There is also no guarantee that in the next decade — assuming ObamaCare survives —  subsidies won’t be increased, coverage won’t be expanded, or other little goodies won’t be added to make this black hole of a program even more expensive. In fact, given the rate at which the cost of health insurance is rising, it is likely that an increase in subsidies will be needed almost immediately.

This isn’t the last increase in the estimated cost for ObamaCare we will see before 2014.

Hotel California - The Eagles

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell"
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
"Please bring me my wine"
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine"
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "