CBO Scores Baucus

How odd… I thought we were trying to pass a healthcare bill to keep people alive and healthy, not a no extra costs bill.
Another odd thing. We’re so worried about how much we spend to keep people alive and well even as we plan to spend how much to bomb Iran and how much to look for water off-Earth? Sort of seems like our priorities might be just a little bit skewed…

“One simple question.. how will a spending bill reduce the deficit?
Answer: By reducing Medicare and Medicaid benefits and removing copayer programs needed by many seniors to be able afford their healthcare on a fixed income. This is the Medicare (waste)that congressional democrats are touting..”
arkie vet | Oct 7, 2009 5:10:00 PM
The added revenue streams are very well defined in the bill, it IS NOT exclusively a spending bill. And since when were conservatives against reining in Medicare? Does ANYONE honestly think it is sustainable on its current trajectory? Come on already, how stupid is the Republican base that suddenly they are devotely railing that there is not a single cent of waste to be found in Medicare?!?!?
Come on, lets keep the debate in reality.

jhw539 –”Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent.”—
When you stipulate to something such as “legal nonelderly” you are in affect comparing teh total rate to a rate different from that garnered by the population as a whole.. another example of liberal double speak..
here’s the reality – as of 2008.. only 45.3% of the TOTAL population was uninsured. About 47 million, of that 47 million, 12 million made over $75 K per year and chose not to insure even though they could probalby afford the premiums (at least in some cases) 6 million of that total made over 100K per year and 3 million of the uninsured made over 250K per year..
The CBO figures are correct on the numbers, this bill will actually provide insurance for about 5-7% of the population who currently can not afford it..

This isn’t just about the elderly and medicare and medicaid costs. This is about middle and lower income families and their inability to afford health insurance premiums resulting in the reduction of benefits or none at all. Where something as simple as a seasonal flu shot could cost the average family of four $100. This family doesn’t get inoculated because they can’t afford it and they wind up in the ER costing tax payers thousands of dollars.It’s the person that loses their coverage or has no prescription benefits and forgoes medication they need.It’s the accumulation of a million different expenses that could be eradicated if everyone or the mass majority of Americans, had health care coverage. Good health care coverage at an affordable price.

45% of the population is almost half. And someone making 75k, before taxes is middle class and in some demographics, lower middle class. Take taxes out, mortgage,car and homeowners insurance,fuel,electricity, expenses for 2 or 3 kids,school expenses, a dog,food and necessities and a $4,000 health insurance premium per month, along with a $2,000 deductible and no dental, vision or prescription plan.You have a family that would more than likely be uninsured.

Some how if you spend 829 Billion dollars it will save 80 billion dollars from the deficit? I guess that makes sense,If you give me 800 dollars and I give you 80 dollars back you could say you made 80 dollars. What the hell kind of fuzzy math is that?Why not just save the 829 billion and that way you could say you made 829 billion instead of 80 billion?What is the budget going to look like? do they figure that or is that another cost we have to pay seperate?

Frankly I don’t believe the report, I think it’s the same kind of clever math that said Clinton left office with a surplus (the national debt increased during both of Clinton’s terms).
I think the number represents a saving from what the deficit could have been rather than any concrete savings. So it is a comparison of two guessing game results.
The inconvenient truth is that an $81 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years (meeting President Obama’s one bright red line) will not pull down the estimated $24 trillion dollars of national debt very much.
Notice that Obamaites speak only of the deficit and remain strangely silent on THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER of the national debt which is forecast to double in the same 10 years.
I say no to all spending bills until someone is willing to address the ever growing national debt and offer a viable plan to mitigate the debt.
Democrats, or republicans, step up to the plate we have an election coming in 2010! Is your IQ high enough to recognize the problem?

Ed: Would you like to mention what happened to the national debt under Clinton IN RELATION TO THE OVERALL ECONOMY? A million in debt makes a big difference if it is I who own it, or if it is Bill Gates. Everything is relative, remember?
Stop all spending… great rhetoric, McCain tried that during the campaign, but unfortunately completely off the target. The sad truth is that the debt started to build up under Reagan, was finally under control at the end of Clinton’s terms (first balanced budget in years), and then… well we know what happened then. If you can’t control the deficit in the good years, how do you think you’ll do in the bad years?

If 29 million brings it to 94% coverage where did those other 18 millon go. Remember we are supposed to have 47 millon uninsured. Ithink the same kindergardeners are doing the math. You cant spend 900 billion and in the same sentence say it wont add to the deficit.

“If 29 million brings it to 94% coverage where did those other 18 millon go. Remember we are supposed to have 47 millon uninsured. Ithink the same kindergardeners are doing the math. You cant spend 900 billion and in the same sentence say it wont add to the deficit.”
earl | Oct 7, 2009 7:39:56 PM
Read the letter. As has been discussed ad nauseum, the 47 million number includes illegal immigrants. And the letter also clearly specifies the new revenue streams that bring in more money than is spent. Or you can just pronounce in your ignorant arrogance that it must be all wrong because you say so.

Smoke & mirrors. Has anyone seen the great OZ lurking behind the curtain?

Here’s new data from the AMA. Checkout who the bad guy is, it’s not the insurance companies.
Medicare, which has been described as the government’s public option for senior citizens, has the highest denial rate in the country, according to the American Medical Association’s 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card.
From March 1, 2007, to March 10 of last year, Medicare rejected 475,566 of 6.94 million claims for a rate of 6.85%.
Aetna was the only private insurer that had a similar number, denying 43,317 of 637,239 claims for a rate of 6.8%. But the average of seven carriers was 4.05% including Aetna. Dropping Aetna from the list takes the denial rate down to 3.08% for the six remaining carriers. Heres how the other six rated; Anteern 4.62%, HealthNet 3.88%, Cigna 3.44%, Humana 2.90%, Coventry 2.88%, and UHC 2.68%.
Now lets look at what else the Congressional Budget Office believes. They state that mandates such as requiring insurers to sell policies to anyone who wants one and rules on what treatments must be covered increase premium costs by 15%. The Council for Affordable Health Insurance says the increase is higher — 20% in some states and as much as 50% in others.
Government run health care as being thrown around in various bills in Congress is a bad idea and the figures support that assumption.

“From March 1, 2007, to March 10 of last year, Medicare rejected 475,566 of 6.94 million claims for a rate of 6.85%.”
Sandcrab1612 | Oct 7, 2009 10:28:42 PM
Nice cut and paste, but if I had wanted to read an IDB editorial I would have just gone to their site. Of course, after their editorial claiming the British NHS would have left Stephen Hawking to die if he were British (of course, he *is* and has thanked the NHS for the quality care that allowed him to live and thrive), they are pretty much a partisan laughingstock.
So Medicare sucks, yet it has the highest satisfaction rate of any insurance plan and even right wingers yelling at town halls for the government to “keep its hands off my Medicare”?

The Devil’s In the Details
According to the CBO, the Baucus bill will reduce the deficit by $81,000,000,000 over the next decade:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a cost estimate of the healthcare reform bill under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding it would increase federal spending by $829 billion over 10 years but be offset by enough spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the budget deficit by $81 billion.
The net number of legal U.S. residents without health insurance would reduce by 29 million over 10 years, the CBO further concluded.
Before Democrats start getting giddy about that report, they shouldn’t forget some important details contained in the CBO’s report:
The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period. In subsequent years, the collective effect of those provisions would probably be continued reductions in federal budget deficits. Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.
In other words, the CBO’s estimates are tentative based on the fact that they don’t have the legislative language. Based on that alone, this summary figure is tentative at best.
It’s also important to note this information from the report:
Among other things, the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would establish a mandate for most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance; set up insurance “exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing that coverage; significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid; substantially reduce the growth of Medicare’s payment rates for most services (relative to the growth rates projected under current law); impose an excise tax on insurance plans with relatively high premiums; and make various other changes to the Medicaid and Medicare programs and the federal tax code.
The income that the bill expects from the excise tax on “insurance plans with relatively high premiums” will be negligible because that provision will be killed by the unions. There’s a better chance that I’ll get struck by lightning twice while holding a winning lottery ticket than there is of that excise tax making it into the final bill.
That paragraph briefly touches on expanding Medicaid without talking about the impact that will have on states’ budgets. Simply put, that provision alone will explode state budgets and trigger massive tax increases nationwide. Those massive tax increases will kill entrepreneurial activity and job growth.
Here’s another important paragraph:
According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources.
The $89,000,000,000 deficit reduction can’t be achieved without the $201,000,000,000 in revenues from the excise taxes imposed on Cadillac health care coverage.
By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants).
This legislation would increase the deficit by $112,000,000,000 and it wouldn’t get close to universal coverage? I can’t believe that the American people are going to look kindly at legislation that contains (a) several major tax increases, (b) $404,000,000,000 in Medicare cuts, increases the deficits when the bill is finalized and that leaves 23,000,000 people uninsured.
That’s before talking about Medicare reimbursement rates:
Among other things, the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would establish a mandate for most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance; set up insurance “exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing that coverage; significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid; substantially reduce the growth of Medicare’s payment rates for most services (relative to the growth rates projected under current law); impose an excise tax on insurance plans with relatively high premiums; and make various other changes to the Medicaid and Medicare programs and the federal tax code.
Does anyone think that hospitals and doctors will sit still while they get shortchanged compared with what they’re getting now? Hospitals and doctors are already getting shortchanged, causing them to shift costs to people with private insurance. Imagine how this will affect rural hospitals and nursing homes, too.
Here’s some preliminary reaction to the unfunded mandates being shipped to the states through increased enrollment to Medicaid:
GOV. TED STRICKLAND (D-OH): “Still, Strickland warned on a recent visit to Washington that ‘the states, with our financial challenges right now, are not in a position to accept additional Medicaid responsibilities.’ Strickland said that he wants ‘a health-care package that is inclusive and provides for all citizens,’ but he added that if Medicaid is expanded, he hopes to ‘see the federal government assume the greater portion of the costs, if not the total costs.’”
GOV. JOHN LYNCH (D-NH): Six Democratic governors did not sign the letter for various reasons. In the case of New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, he did not sign because the letter failed to ‘address concerns regarding potential cost shifting to the states,’ said Colin Manning, a spokesman for the governor. ‘And this concern has been shared by a number of governors that Gov. Lynch has spoken to across the country,’ Manning said.”
GOV. PHIL BREDESEN (D-TN): “My Guess Is That Most Other States Would Face A Similarly Painful Situation If These Costs Are Passed Down.” “In his letter to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Bredesen also urged the senator and his fellow lawmakers to temper down their proposed changes to the low-income healthcare entitlement, an expansion Corker later described as an ‘unfunded mandate’ that could overburden states at a time when many are struggling to manage the recession. ‘My guess is that most other states would face a similarly painful situation if these costs are passed down,’ Corker explained in his own statement on Tuesday.”
GOV. BEV PERDUE (D-NC): “The Absolute Deal Breaker For Me As Governor Is A Federal Plan That Shifts Costs To The States.” “We are all hungry for a solution, but the absolute deal breaker for me as governor is a federal plan that shifts costs to the states.”
GOV. ED RENDELL (D-PA): “I Don’t Think It’s An Accounting Trick, I Think It’s An Unfunded Mandate…We Just Don’t Have The Wherewithal To Absorb That Without Some New Revenue Source …”
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D-NM): “We Can’t Afford That, And That’s Not Acceptable.”
GOV. BILL RITTER (D-CO): “Our Only Point Was That A Significant Medicaid Expansion Should Not Operate As An Unfunded Mandate For The States.”
GOV. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): “They Thought The Best Way, The Federal Government Thought The Best Way Is By Expanding Medicaid To Make That Happen. But We Have Said, ‘Under No Conditions Can We Take Unfunded Mandates.’ You can’t raise the eligibility of Medicaid 133% and put a $100 billion back on the states to pick up.”
In my opinion, there’s no way that state legislators and governors will consent to getting hit with the mother of all unfunded mandates. They’d be the villain in the public’s eyes for passing a huge tax increase that they’d need to pay for the unfunded mandate that the federal government would dump on them.
The best way to characterize the CBO’s report is to say that it’s a great headline for Democrats but the details don’t help Democrats. In fact, I’m betting that, within a week, the CBO’s report will be a net negative for Democrats.

Gary above paints a grim but accurate picture. The government is really broke and planning more spending.

Does it help very much to reduce the deficit? the boat is still sinking, deficits will still exist and the national debt is still going to double to some $24 trillion within ten years!
Is it goodbye USA and hello USSA?

Gary above paints a grim but accurate picture. The government is really broke and planning more spending.
Posted by: kottaras | Oct 8, 2009 12:36:27 AM
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So vote them all out of office and start with a clean slate…… I’m so sick of hearing people complain about how our govt is broken and then we reelect 94% of the incumbents running. Are you people so ignorant as to think that YOUR representatives aren’t part of the problem?

$81 billion reduction over 10 years on a debt of $11.4 trillion that accumulates interest at the rate of $3.5 billion PER DAY! $81 billion sounds like a lot, until you put it against the other numbers. and that’s if the bauccus plan actually only costs what it projects, and who believes that?

Examples: The Post Office has serious issues even breaking even every year. Medicare is broke. Social Security is broke. Amtrak, same dismal result every year. Casn for Clunkers, $1 billion estimated, $3 billion final tally. Sure, spending $800 billion is going to reduce our deficit. Looks great on paper as do all government run programs. A government run insurance company will not reduce “actual health care costs”.

It will be great once we get those twenty million new voters. New voters we just rewarded with free healthcare and citizenship to help offset the ACCORN losses.
We’ll jam this bill down America’s throat and there will be no looking back.
Just watch us.

“From March 1, 2007, to March 10 of last year, Medicare rejected 475,566 of 6.94 million claims for a rate of 6.85%.”
Sandcrab1612 | Oct 7, 2009 10:28:42 PM
These data are from the AMA’s Health Insurer’s Report Card. Sandcrab’s claim is accurate. Medicare rejected 6.9% of claims submitted in 2008. But, though it’s the “truth”, it’s not the “whole truth” that an accurate judgment requires.
Of the 8 largest health insurers examined, Medicare had the highest rejection rate in 2008, namely 6.9%, but it wasn’t that much out of line with the other 7 insurers. Aetna, for instance, rejected 6.8% of claims.
Further, in 2009, Medicare’s rejection rate had been reduced to 4.0%, still in line with the others, but no longer the highest rate. Anthem/BCBS rejected 4.3%.
It took me almost an hour to look up sandcrab’s source and deflate that propagandistic statement. Out of dozens of comparisons, he’s picked the one that makes Medicare look terrible.
Can’t we quit this juvenile stuff? It’s misleading and time consuming.

There is not Baucus committee bill, someone at ABC should ask the question where is the transparency that was promised to us, or are the just stooges for the dems at ABC?