The Corner

Subject: CBO/Health Care

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Thanks for the link to Ed Morrissey, but he seems to make a mistake too many people are making.  Ed talks about a $239 billion ‘deficit’.  The *cost* of Obamacare is the full cost of the program.  One way or the other, we will pay every penny which is added to the cost of federal health care.  What gets reported, however, is this ‘deficit’, i.e. the cost of Obamacare minus any new taxes which are also proposed.

 

If Obamacare cost $1 trillion, but he raised $2 trillion in new taxes, Obamacare would not save $1 trillion, nor would it be cost free if he raised taxes by only $1 trillion.  Whether he raised no new taxes, fully funded it with new taxes, or taxed so much that we had money left over, the cost of a $1 trillion Obamacare plan is always $1 trillion. 

 

The deficit is important, but the it seems to me that the cost of the plan ought to be the headline number always, even if he taxed enough pay for it.

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