Finally, a victory for Obamacare! Or so the media claims.
According to reports, the CBO said the Senate Finance Committee’s highly conceptual health reform legislation, put together by committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would reduce the federal budget in 10 years. But what exactly did the CBO say?
We read the report, and highlighted some important sentences omitted from that cheering coverage:
“CBO and [the Joint Committee on Taxation’s] analysis is preliminary in large part because the Chairman’s mark, as amended, has not yet been embodied in legislative language.” In other words, the Senate Finance Committee has yet to produce a real bill, with real bill language, and instead has been marking up a conceptual framework. There is no telling what would change once there was an actual bill, or what that would mean for CBO’s projection. As the CBO notes, “Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.”
“These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is not often the case for major legislation.” Much of the deficit reductions the CBO credits come from significant cuts in Medicare, primarily in payment reductions for Medicare Advantage.
Congress has a long and uncomplicated history of restoring the cuts it makes to Medicare. Just look at the “doc fix” issue, in which Congress, year after year, delayed cuts in physician payments. But CBO actually takes pain to explain these deficits aren’t likely to happen.
“CBO has not extrapolated estimates further in the future, because the uncertainties surrounding them are magnified even more.” America is swimming in debt. While the CBO provides analysis for the first 10 years, there are no mentions of what this enormous legislative framework could do to deficits 20 or 30 years later.
We know the federal budget is hemorrhaging trillions in deficits. Economists predict this will worsen from the current unfunded promises to be paid out for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We have no idea what the real, long-term cost of a new federal health program would be.
What Americans need is real legislative language, the five days President Obama promised the public would have to see any bill online before it’s voted on, and more accountability from our elected officials. After all, they’re overhauling one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and changing the way we get (or don’t get) our health care.
