By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--January 27, 2015
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"...add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years -- less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration. Now, most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent -- but spent badly -- in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes."That moment may have received a huge round of applause from the Nancy Pelosis and Harry Reids of the world, but sane people knew it was a load of hogwash. Even liberal stalwart Ezra Klein eventually admitted that the $900 billion number was way too low and was simply chosen for political expediency. There was simply no way to implement Obama's boondoggle at the announced pricetag. Still, top-level Democrats kept repeating the figure - ad nausea - as they rammed their unpopular law down the American people's throat. Now, unfortunately, we have a new CBO estimate that shows just how wrong they actually were. As the Daily Mail reports they missed the mark by, well, a lot:
It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday. The number comes from figures buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization's new ten-year budget outlook. The best-case scenario described by the CBO would result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured in 2025, compared to the year before the Affordable Care Act took effect. Pulling that off will cost Uncle Sam about $1.35 trillion – or $50,000 per head. The numbers are daunting: It will take $1.993 trillion, a number that looks like $1,993,000,000,000, to provide insurance subsidies to poor and middle-class Americans, and to pay for a massive expansion of Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) costs. Offsetting that massive outlay will be $643 billion in new taxes, penalties and fees related to the Obamacare law. That revenue includes quickly escalating penalties – or 'taxes,' as the U.S. Supreme Court described them – on people who resist.Keep in mind, the new estimate is only valid if the medical device tax remains in place - something that no one on either side of the aisle thinks likely. When that goes, the numbers will look even worse. Of course, all of this is by design. The "Affordable" Care Act was built to self-destruct, guaranteeing that it was - as Harry Reid admitted - just a "step" on the path to a single payer system.
“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said. When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”Looks like their plan is coming to fruition... Say, how did mess become law, anyway? Oh, that's right:
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