How Have Past Government Estimates Worked Out?
Apr 13, 2010 Political
The big deal about this health care takeover is that the CBO, using specific assumptions provided by Democrats, came up with a score that told us how much the bill would cost and how much it would save in a ten year period. This is all smoke and mirrors but Democrats dutifully appear in front of constituents and claim the new law will cost what was estimated and will save money. They continue to harp this possibly under the meme that if you say something enough, people will start to believe it.
The reality is that this law will cast more than estimated (two to three times more) and therefore, will not save money. I know that the progressives believe what they are told by government. Strike that, they believe what they are told by progressives/liberals/Democrats in government. If a conservative from government told them they needed oxygen to live they would say it was a lie and that the conservative was a hate monger who was talking about death squads.
Let us take a look at what Jim Quinn of Lew Rockwell.com has to say about past government estimates:
Politicians have demonstrated over decades to be completely ignorant of the long-term impact of the rules and regulations they have inflicted upon the American people. For those who believe that creating a new entitlement for 32 million people, hiring 16,500 new IRS agents to enforce the new regulations, and allowing government boards to make your healthcare decisions for you will reduce costs and improve healthcare, I will point you to the facts versus promise of prior legislation. A Senate Joint Economic Committee released a report in 2009 found that health care plan costs are always dramatically underestimated by the politicians that create the entitlements:
- Medicare (hospital insurance) – In 1965, as Congress considered legislation to establish a national Medicare program, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance portion of the program, Part A, would cost about $9 billion annually by 1990.v Actual Part A spending in 1990 was $67 billion. The actuary who provided the original cost estimates acknowledged in 1994 that, even after conservatively discounting for the unexpectedly high inflation rates of the early ‘70s and other factors, “the actual [Part A] experience was 165% higher than the estimate.”
- Medicare (entire program) – In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that the new Medicare program, launched the previous year, would cost about $12 billion in 1990. Actual Medicare spending in 1990 was $110 billion – off by nearly a factor of 10.
- Medicaid DSH program – In 1987, Congress estimated that Medicaid’s disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments – which states use to provide relief to hospitals that serve especially large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients – would cost less than $1 billion in 1992. The actual cost that year was a staggering $17 billion. Among other things, federal lawmakers had failed to detect loopholes in the legislation that enabled states to draw significantly more money from the federal treasury than they would otherwise have been entitled to claim under the program’s traditional 50-50 funding scheme.
- Medicare home care benefit – When Congress debated changes to Medicare’s home care benefit in 1988, the projected 1993 cost of the benefit was $4 billion. The actual 1993 cost was more than twice that amount, $10 billion.
- Medicare catastrophic coverage benefit – In 1988, Congress added a catastrophic coverage benefit to Medicare, to take effect in 1990. In July 1989, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doubled its cost estimate for the program, for the four-year period 1990-1993, from $5.7 billion to $11.8 billion. CBO explained that it had received newer data showing it had significantly under-estimated prescription drug cost growth, and it warned Congress that even this revised estimate might be too low. This was a principal reason Congress repealed the program before it could take effect.
- SCHIP – In 1997, Congress established the State Children’s Health Insurance Program as a capped grant program to states, and appropriated $40 billion to be doled out to states over 10 years at a rate of roughly $5 billion per year, once implemented. In each year, some states exceeded their allotments, requiring shifts of funds from other states that had not done so. By 2006, unspent reserves from prior years were nearly exhausted. To avert mass disenrollments, Congress decided to appropriate an additional $283 million in FY 2006 and an additional $650 million in FY 2007.
Based on this track record, do you believe President Obama when he declares that his national healthcare plan will save $136 billion in the first ten years? It appears the rocket scientists on the Democratic side of the aisle have trouble estimating the costs of the entitlements they hand out on a regular basis. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to slightly underestimate the cost of their invasions (Rummy says $50 billion; taxi meter says $977 billion and counting).
The entire piece is quite long but is well worth the read. It lays out very nicely what the new entitlement program will cost and how the estimates are nowhere near what will actually occur.
There is no doubt that the government does not get estimates correct. One can blame the CBO but that entity only scores what it is given and it is given only what is needed to get the score desired. It does not matter what party is involved because they both submit only what they want scored and only what will give the desired results.
The government deliberately does this to fool people into supporting the legislation. By the time most of it implodes many of those who lied to us will be out of office or dead. Many of them are wealthy and don’t really care about what the law does because it will not affect them. Even if they subject themselves to the bill they are wealthy enough to pay for what they want and while they are in office they have access to the top floor at Walter Reed where a million dollars a year keeps a ward ready in case some dignitary needs care. This includes members of Congress.
Once they are out of office they will enjoy what their money can buy for them. They will be able to spend their money anywhere in the US they want to get care. The only difference between them and a Canadian politician is that the Canadian needs a passport to get the care here.
And does anyone really think they will get the same care as members of Congress? Ted Kennedy received top-notch care on a moment’s notice. Anyone who thinks that Mac Daddy Obama is going to provide them with the same treatment that Teddy or any other politician gets is smoking some of the good stuff.
Read the article. There is no doubt they deceived us. There is no denying that their previous estimates of programs were lies and did not pan out. There is no doubt that they have been off by many multiples of the original cost on these past programs.
And there is no doubt that this is true for the new law.
Not to worry though. We will just print more money.
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: cbo, Congress, estimates, jim quinn, lew rockwell, lies, Obama, ted kennedy
We Will Remember In November
Mar 22, 2010 Political
Congress got the chance to vote last night and the Democrats went against the will of the people to pass a bill that most do not want. The need for reform exists but people do not want this bill as the reform because it is intrusive and contains at least one unconstitutional provision.
Democrats ignored their constituents and voted with the party to takeover and control our lives. The bill is bad which is why the Democrats are in damage control mode. The bill is bad which is why they had to bribe their own members. The bill is bad which is why most Americans oppose it.
But they voted for it anyway. OK, Democrats in Congress got their chance to vote last night and we will get our chance in November. We will make them pay, and pay dearly, for ignoring our will and imposing theirs. They know they are in trouble and only hope that they have enough time to change people’s minds. They will also push for the rest of their agenda (amnesty, cap and trade, etc.) to keep us occupied and to make us forget what they did.
They will not be successful. When election day gets here they will pay with their jobs. We will not forget what they did. We will not forget the process and the way they ignored our Republican form of government to play dictator. We will not forget.
Those in safe districts likely have little to worry about but they will be in the minority when the election rolls around. Nancy Pelosi will be relegated to the minority. If they are smart they will give her a job cleaning latrines. That is where she belongs.
Meanwhile, people will hold Barack Obama accountable. He said on at least twenty occasions that he will reduce premiums by about $2500. He had better come through on that or he will be bounced on his progressive ass in 2012. He is likely a one term occupant anyway but Bill Clinton was able to wrangle a second term. Obama, with a Republican majority, might be able to do the same. We have had enough of this communist and we need to get rid of him after one term before he does even more damage.
It might be worthwhile for conservatives to sell all stock in companies who supported this mess.
We lost a battle yesterday but we have not lost the war. We need to get into our full battle rattle and take back our country.
We can start in November by making every one of them pay for what they did.
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: Congress, corruption, Democrats, health care, lies, november, Obama, Pelosi, votes
Obama Goes All In
Mar 16, 2010 Opinion, Political
The health care takeover the Democrats have been working on for over a year is coming down to the final hours and the majority party is pulling out all the stops. They are working on unconstitutional methods to pass the bill, circumventing the normal process and lying about the bill being bipartisan in that they incorporated some Republican ideas.
They have a shell bill which is what they will pass and then when it goes to committee they will remove the items and replace them with the things they really want.
Barack Obama discusses the idea of courage and says that the time for politics is over and Congress should do what is right and put politics aside. Obama does this while playing politics because he is a product of the Chicago thug machine and he does not know what courage is and he is unaware of how to do something without involving politics. Additionally, Obama has allowed politics to get in the way because his desire NOT to fail on this issue has led to his political power play to get it passed. As for courage, if Obama had that trait he would have scrapped the bill and started over in a bipartisan fashion.
Obama delayed his working vacation for a few days to go around the country and …wait for it…engage in a political campaign for the bill. He is out there pushing hard for the bill. In essence, he is now “all in”, a term that describes a card player who throws all his money in the pot.
Obama is now all in on this like he was with the Chicago Olympic bid, the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey and the Senate race in Massachusetts. His spin doctors worked hard to make each of these look as if they were not Obama failures but they were.
Now that he is all in on health care he has no place to hide. His spin masters will not be able to spin this in any way, shape, or form should the bill not pass.
If this bill does not pass then Obama will be seen as having failed, especially by his own party. It will look, and rightly so, as if he gave it all he had and could not get it done even with super majorities.
He will be a failure and he knows it.
Right now the votes are not there but that does not mean it will fail to pass. There are plenty of backroom deals being made and offers are flying about the halls of the Capitol to give members anything they want for a yes vote. Pelosi is twisting arms two at a time and doing everything to force people to fall in line and vote yes.
And yet she does not have the votes.
If they happen to pass this then America will be outraged with those who sold their votes, and that is the only way they change, just as they were with Ben Nelson. That anger will show on election day and despite what the pseudo intellectual pundits say, Democrats will lose big. The Democrats know this and it is a major reason that many are hesitant to vote yes.
This is a lose lose situation for the Democrats because they will lose if this fails and lose bigger if it passes.
Obama has put them between Barack and a hard place and now he too, is all in.
But he does not have to worry about being reelected this year.
He has three years to recover. His Democrats in the House do not have that luxury and they know they are being hung out to dry.
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Tags: Congress, election, health care, lies, takeover
Obama To Bypass Congress
Feb 16, 2010 Political
Barack Obama criticized George Bush for using Executive Orders to get things done. The Democrats complained that Mr. Bush had taken too much power for the Executive branch. They did not like him getting things done via Executive Order.
Executive Orders have their place. The President can use them to issue orders to the Executive Branch departments and direct how they will run. The day to day kinds of things. There is an EO regarding the drug free federal workplace. This is an expectation from the Executive to the workers.
On the other hand, EOs can be very bad. The president signs them directing one thing or another and thus takes power away from the Congress. This is not good practice and it diminishes the legislative branch further. Right now, Obama’s team is looking at the things they could not get done through the Congress and are working on getting them done by EO:
“We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. NYT
We have seen this with some legislation that Congress has rejected. Obama said he would institute what he wanted via EO after Congress rejected it. This is wrong and it is not the way to govern.
To be clear, many past presidents have done this and it was no more right then than it is now. However, Obama was the one who made a big stink about EOs (and signing statements, which he uses as well) and he chastised Mr. Bush for what he did.
Now Obama is doing the very same things and his minions on the left are giving him a pass. How long will Congress sit by while their power is usurped by the Executive Branch?
Obama plans to push his agenda and get things done whether he has to do it through Congress or through EO. Congress needs to put an end to this.
As an aside, isn’t it funny that all the people, who for years criticized the way Bush handled the war on terror and terror suspects, are justifying what Obama is doing by saying he is doing the same thing Bush did?
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Tags: Congress, executive order, lies, Obama, signing statements
Evan Bayh Throws In The Towel
Feb 15, 2010 Political
This is shaping up to be a very bad year for Democrats. Despite requests from Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel to reconsider, moderate Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana will not seek reelection stating that he still has a desire to serve the people, just not in Congress.
Evidently, the hostile environment in Congress is becoming too much for the moderates. Bayh only voted with his party 71% of the time and I am willing to bet he got beat up over votes against the agenda or that he felt pressured to vote in a manner that he did not want.
Bayh’s decision comes as a surprise to many as it looked like he would probably win reelection. I doubt that the possibility of a tough race had anything to do with his decision. He probably is genuinely fed up with the atmosphere in Congress.
Bayh probably did not agree with the Obama agenda, or at least major protions of it. He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
Plus, he is a family man and likes to spend time with his children and attend their activities. No one can fault him for that.
Bayh’s decision caps off a trifecta that began when Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan announced last month that they will not seek reelection.
A commenter at the source site had a great point:
“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,” – Obama
Oh well.
Indiana is a conservative state and usually pretty red. Bayh is a well liked moderate but the state trends Republican. Obama won the state last year becoming the first Democrat to win it since Lyndon Johnson.
I bet the folks of Indiana have buyer’s remorse and will not go Democrat again for a long time. They are probably still asking what they have done…
Or maybe they are asking themselves the question Sarah Palin posed; “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?
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Tags: Clinton, Congress, emanuel, evan bayh, Obama, reelection, resign