Arkady's Thoughts

According to CATO's Michael Cannon , an individual who devoted years researching and writing about America's health care, over 2 trillion dollars .  Cannon points to missing mandates, Medicare cuts that have traditionally been blocked and new federal spending.  CBO's calculation based on 829 billion dollars was hard to swallow for various reasons .  Cannon uses an already existing model of my own state and our version of ObamaCare more affectionately known as RomneyCare to arrive to the final number.  But the worst part is that the Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary cost estimate omits the cost of the private sector mandates in the Baucus bill. In Massachusetts, those costs accounted for 60 percent of the total cost of reform. That suggests the actual cost of the Baucus bill – $829 billion plus $75 billion plus $33 billion, times 2.5 – is well over $2 trillion. This strikes at the core of the main argument, government programs never material...

Democrats are delighted and the GOP is scrambling after yesterday's announcement suggested the Senate version of the bill will be a cost cutter .  A major hurdle the liberals had to clear was to convince Americans that reform was coming and it meant saving money.  Polls suggest most Americans are reluctant to believe an 800+ billion dollar bill can save anything, but the CBO certainly gave Obscure proponents a huge boost. There is just one major problem with CBO's analysis and it would appear that the bill was crafted and modified specifically to extract this kind of conclusion.  Several weeks ago CBO estimated the Baucus bill would add to deficit, now suddenly the bill will  decrease the deficit - what gives? The bill is front loaded.   Taxes on all related medical devices under $100 and higher rates for "Cadillac"/"gold-plated" insurance plans begin as early as 2011.  However the actual implementation of the bill and the benefits provided ...