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The House's trillion-dollar heath-care bill
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
10/30/09 11:40 AM EDT
If you're interested in the health-care reform bills on Capitol Hill -- particularly if the deficits, spending, and other numbers float your boat -- follow Philip Klein at the American Spectator.
Klein yesterday pointed out that the House health-care bill comes in under a trillion dollars only when you ask "what will it add to the deficit over ten years?" If you ask "how much does it spend over the next ten years?" you get $1.1 trilion. The difference is made up by tax hikes.
The House bill, like the Senate Finance bill, also backloads the costs, meaning the 20-year costs will be much more than twice the ten-year costs -- it's a budget trick to game the Congressiona Budget Office's method of looking at 10-year costs.
If you care about numbers and how they're gamed, here's Klein's work at the Spectator, but even more edifying is his twitter feed at philipaklein.
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