Democrats Played Fast And Loose With Cost Estimates
Dec 26, 2009 Political
The Democrats used DC math to get estimates from the CBO to meet the requirements set forth by Obama in reference to health care costs. Democrats claim that the health care overhaul will save money but they apply so called savings to two different items. It is physically impossible to use “saved” money, in its entirety, for two different things.
The Congressional Budget Office challenged claims by health-care overhaul proponents that Medicare savings in Senate legislation would help finance expanded coverage and postpone the bankruptcy of the medical program for the elderly.
The nonpartisan agency said the $246 billion it projected the legislation would save Medicare can’t both finance new programs and help pay future expenses for elderly covered under the federal program.
Nor could those savings be used to extend the solvency of Medicare, set to run out of money in 2017, the budget office said in a letter to Senate Republicans. Bloomberg
The Democrats could have done this on purpose or it could be a mistake because no one has any idea what this bill contains. They just wanted to get something passed so they could claim a victory and go home. I am betting it was done on purpose with the hope that no one would notice because they like to use funny math in DC. The way they manage a budget would bankrupt any private business and land CEOs in jail.
Senator Sessions said it best:
“What we’ve seen is a colossal manipulation” by Democrats “of the accounting scores of CBO” and the independent actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, said Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the Republican who requested the analysis from CBO. He called the letter “a potential game-changer.”
This would be a game changer if Democrats cared about costs. They have manipulated this entire process to give the impression that their overhaul saves money when it will, in fact, cost trillions of dollars, money we do not have.
The only thing I can see facing Democrats during their time off is a lot of grief from constituents who are fed up with the games being played.
We can’t really blame them too much though. They spent so much of our money buying votes (something that would land us in jail) that they needed to show savings someplace.
They just got caught this time…
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Tags: cbo, cost lies, fuzzy math, health care bill