The scoring is in on the health-care bills, and it’s hard to see what the Democrats’ proposed health-care overhaul would achieve apart from centralizing and consolidating power in Washington. During the campaign, then-Senator Obama said, “I am committed to signing a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office. My plan will lower costs $2,500 per year for the typical American family.” But the Congressional Budget Office has now released an analysis of the proposed Senate bill that the President is championing, and it turns out that his prior estimate was off by $4,600 a year. The CBO says that the average American family would see its premiums rise by $2,100 a year, at least in the individual market — the part of the market where everyone agrees that “reform” is most needed. Were you expecting more for a price-tag of $2,500,000,000,000.00 over 10 years? True, many Americans would receive subsidies to help cover their higher premiums, but those subsidies would be paid for by other Americans. The Democrats’ basic strategy seems to be to drive up premiums and then put far more people on the dole to help pay for them.

But the scoring doesn’t stop there. The Office of the Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that under the House health bill, the percentage of the United States gross domestic product spent on health care would rise from 17 percent today to 21 percent in 2019. CMS’s Chief Actuary also says that we would spend $289 billion more on health care over the next decade under the House health bill than under current law — and more than $500 billion more unless the Democrats follow through on their wild pledge to cut doctors’ pay under Medicare by 21 percent (23 percent in the Senate) and never raise it back up — ever.