Health Care Reform Could Add Up To $530 Billion To Budget Deficit: Report

* Analysis says law could add up to $530 bln to deficit

* White House criticizes former Bush official's report

* Obama administration says law will better control costs

By John Crawley

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) - Instead of curbing government spending, President Barack Obama's healthcare law could add up to $530 billion to the federal debt over ten years, a Republican expert on U.S. government benefit programs said on Tuesday.

A study by Charles Blahous, a George Mason University research fellow and the Republican trustee for the Medicare and Social Security entitlement programs for the elderly, challenged the administration's contention that the 2010 law would reduce healthcare costs.

But the Obama administration defended the law as a cost-saver and sharply criticized the report by Blahous, an economic policy adviser under former President George W. Bush.

Known as the "Affordable Care Act," or by conservatives as "Obamacare," the measure to expand health insurance for millions of Americans is considered Obama's signature domestic policy achievement.

The Supreme Court is weighing whether Congress overstepped its authority to regulate commerce in approving the law. The justices heard arguments in the high-stakes case two weeks ago.

Republican presidential candidates have promised to repeal the law if one of them wins the White House in the November election. Conservatives denounce the sweeping overhaul as an unwarranted government intrusion.

Obama and the Democrats believe the law will control skyrocketing costs and curtail government "red ink."

White House health adviser Jeanne Lambrew said Blahous' analysis wrongly charges that some savings are "double counted." She said government estimates from the Office of Management and Budget and from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show the 2010 law would lower federal deficits over a 10 year period.

"This new math fits the old pattern of mischaracterizations about the Affordable Care Act when official estimates show the health care law reduces the deficit," Lambrew, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, wrote in a blog post on the White House website.

But Blahous, who also served as the deputy director of the National Economic Council under Bush, said in his research that the law is expected to boost net federal spending by more than $1.15 trillion and add between $340 billion and $530 billion to deficits between 2012-21.

"Relative to previous law, the (healthcare law) both exacerbates projected federal deficits and increases an already unsustainable federal commitment to health care spending," he concluded.

The analysis, first reported by the Washington Post late on Monday, also comes a month after the Congressional Budget Office cut the estimated net cost of the healthcare law by $48 billion to $1.08 trillion through 2021.

Comments

[weprintandsend]

01:18 PM on 04/11/2012

So what is the answer..
1. Go to ER when you are sick or need a doctor..
2. Buy lottery tickets in hopes of winning health care..
3.Let them die...
PS..talk with someone who pays $1500/mo for health care with a high deductible and cap..and may have a kid who will always be considered "preexisting condition applicant..

[weprintandsend]

01:11 PM on 04/11/2012

see those people in the protest photo..they are all on Medicare..

[mjtaylor22]

11:13 AM on 04/11/2012

:if i close my left eye and recount the numbers standing on my head.....it definitey looks like it will expand the deficit...cant you see my point"
no that crappy math........

[mjtaylor22]

11:11 AM on 04/11/2012

true false hood....he wants to change to rules inthe middle of the game..the cbo score is oslid...and trustworthy for both parties.....so suck it up and stop lying to get votes so sick of the dam lies from the gop

[mjtaylor22]

10:56 AM on 04/11/2012

if the gop really gave a dam about deficits they would not run the m up so high everytime they are elected...every dam time..they blow thru tax payer money...get fired them blame the other guy for the debt...and themedia and the dame people too often fall for it and somehow put these crooks back in to do more damage to the middle class.

[mjtaylor22]

10:39 AM on 04/11/2012

a bush economic guy did this study...come the frek on....what did bush or his advisor do that was right in any way shape or form.......remember "the iraq's will welcome us as heroes"--"the war will be quick"
"its not a recession, its a slow down" Bush Feb 2008.................
deficits dont matter --cheney 2003

[vegancheesenut]

01:03 PM on 04/10/2012

LMAO...........here's a rundown on this.............it's called "fuzzy" math again. I'm shocked!!!

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/10/461265/gop-economist-deficit/

[oftenon]

12:51 PM on 04/10/2012

lies, damn lies and a Bush statistician... gosh, this IS shocking!

[bart4u]

11:57 AM on 04/10/2012

This man advised Bush meaning everything that comes out of his mouth will be untrue.

[ny hot mic]

11:51 AM on 04/10/2012

Sometimes I wonder if people actually think or if they just push their robotic political voice button, and out spews talking points.

All you need to know is what you already know if you were honestly looking at what it’s going to take to create this program: There are no large entitlement programs on a federal level that are solvent. Not Social Security, not Medicare. And what about other agencies? What about the Pentagon, the Post Office, et al?

All are too big, too wasteful, rampant with people who don’t care about the numbers, they just care about what the numbers look like in the press. So what Obamacare would mean is that we just look the other way while they create another one, when all that really needed to happen was to absorb 30 million people into Medicare. We already have one insolvent medical healthcare program for our seniors, and you support inventing another one that can affect the health and welfare of 300 million people?

[dcflush]

11:44 AM on 04/10/2012

The Republican plan to replace 'Obamacare'.

Let's ignore the 40 to 50 million without insurance.

Let's ignore the fact that many who think they like the American health system will find out that when they get sick their insurer will drop them. I wonder how they'll like it then.

Let's ignore the fact that 44,000 die each year because they had a preventable illness but lacked insurance.

Let's ignore the 1 million each year who go bankrupt primarily due to medical bills.

And let's ignore the fact that nearly every other modern nation has far higher satisfaction with their health care, higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality and about half the cost per capita.

But clearly we have the best system in the world.

[MarcDel]

12:12 PM on 04/10/2012

So very well summarized. Bravo. No one has determined the overall savings of prevention and early diagnosis and treatment that would come from an improved healthcare system. No one calculates the lost production and tax revenue from un-diagnosed and untreated conditions.
Instead we get tidbits designed for political impact. What ever happened to American ingenuity that argued If we first don't succeed we'll keep improving? It's apparently been replaced with, if it's broke leave it.

[nanimal]

11:42 AM on 04/10/2012

Hey it was the CBO who stated that the Healthcare Act would reduce costs so where is this "former economic policy adviser under former President George W. Bush." get his figures and why has it taken him so long to come up with these numbers? I don't believe and neither should any other intelligent being.

[ny hot mic]

11:25 AM on 04/10/2012

In the eyes of this administration, adding 340 billion to the deficit is nothing compared to the added jobs for the IRS. Growing the government is it’s first and only priority.

[nanimal]

11:45 AM on 04/10/2012

Then why did the Federal government grow so much under George W. Bush. He's the one that liked to put everything on the credit card and not account for it in the budget. Your argument doesn't fly.

[ny hot mic]

11:47 AM on 04/10/2012

1. Which major government program within the past 70 years costs anything even close to what its proponents had promised?

2. What has this administration and the president promised that was actually true?

After you submit your lists of the above, then feel free to comment.

[mjtaylor22]

10:42 AM on 04/11/2012

republcans want a govt so small it can fit in a womans uterus and see her baby..and so big that it will know when my wife misses her period....

[romano70]

11:24 AM on 04/10/2012

And the world is coming to an end unless we elect a republican this time around, correct? Please! Republicans need to get over their ignorant selves.

[ny hot mic]

11:23 AM on 04/10/2012

C’mon SCOTUS, overturn this pig.This never was about economical healthcare but about big government partisan power consolidation

[mjtaylor22]

10:43 AM on 04/11/2012

a private secotr plan a plan that makes people buy form private insurance companiesis a govt take over.okay.............

[weprintandsend]

01:14 PM on 04/11/2012

yea Buba.."get er done"..gezzzzzzz