CBO Score On Senate Bill: $2.5 Trillion Over Ten Years

Weasel Zippers lays out the details.

The Congressional Budget Office's score is in for the final Senate health bill, and it's amazing how little Americans would get for so much.

The Democrats are irresponsibly and disingenuously claiming that the bill would cost $871 billion over 10 years. But that's not what the CBO says. Rather, the CBO says that $871 billion would be the costs from 2010 to 2019 for expansions in insurance coverage alone.But less than 2 percent of those "10-year costs" would kick in before the fifth year of that span. In its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), the CBO says that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion -- for insurance coverage expansions alone. Other parts of the bill would cost approximately $700 billion more, bringing the bill's full 10-year tab to approximately $2.5 trillion -- according to the CBO.

In those real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), Americans would have to pay over $1 trillion in additional taxes, over $1 trillion would be siphoned out of Medicare (over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage alone) and spent on Obamacare, and deficits would rise by over $200 billion. They would rise, that is, unless Congress follows through on the bill's pledge to cut doctors' payments under Medicare by 21 percent next year and never raise them back up -- which would reduce doctors' enthusiasm for seeing Medicare patients dramatically.

And what would Americans get in return for this staggering sum? Well, the CBO says that health care premiums would rise, and the Chief Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says that the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product spent on health care would rise from 17 percent today to 21 percent by the end of 2019. Nationwide health care costs would be $234 billion higher than under current law. How's that for "reform"?

But the majority will just keep goosestepping this nation off the cliff, regardless of what damage they do to the economy and our healthcare system.

For seasoned citizens, think of this...next time the Democrats try to scare you into thinking Republicans will cut your Medicare, it is they (Democrats) who actually will do what they accuse others of.

Vote em all out...starting with "Dingy" Harry and the others in 2010. Ben Nelson and Jim Webb...well come after you in 2012!

.......

Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard also points out a key phrase in the CBO report.

Adjusting for inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of less than 2 percent during the next two decades--about half of the roughly 4 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."

Here are the key ten words: "reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."