Welcome to the StimulatedYet.com Blog
Check this page for what's new on the site, what projects we've begun and completed, what message forums have been added, etc.
We will also highlight news stories and other items of interest!
Please enjoy your stay!
Check this page for what's new on the site, what projects we've begun and completed, what message forums have been added, etc.
We will also highlight news stories and other items of interest!
Please enjoy your stay!
CBO: We didn’t have enough time to accurately estimate health bill’s cost
Posted 05-13-2010 at 10:13 AM by webixi
CBO: We didn’t have enough time to accurately estimate health bill’s cost
The Obama administration threatened to veto parts of its own health care bill after budget scorekeepers found that the package would add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending.
[...]
The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation — or not.
Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers.
Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.
Source:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/12/ob...ts-arent-made/
-------------------------------------------------
Hoodwinked by Health Care? CBO Estimate of Cost $115B More Than Original White House Estimate
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," May 12, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: OK, hold your breath and count to 115 billion. According to CBO, the health care bill could cost $150 billion more than the government originally thought. That makes the grand total more than $1 trillion for the health care bill.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who has been protesting that price tag for more than a year, goes "On the Record."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, nice to see you, sir.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH, R-UTAH: Nice to see you.
VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, I have this letter from the Congressional Budget Office to member Jerry Lewis, ranking member on the committee on appropriations about scoring the federal health care bill. We got an update on it. A huge $115 billion dollars over 10 years more?
HATCH: That's exactly right. They sold this bill as less than $1 trillion. And the gimmicked it up by not counting the first four years. It is really over 10 years $2.5 trillion.
But taking their word it is less than $1 trillion we now find it is $115 billion more so it is over $1 trillion. I might add there are all kinds of other costs they are not talking about here as well. So the budget will double in five years and triple in 10 years under the Obama administration. Health care is going to be one of the major reasons for the tripling.
VAN SUSTEREN: I read an article in the Associated Press asking the CBO why suddenly the $115 billion number now, and the Associated Press says the CBO says the reason they didn't tell us before is they didn't have enough time.
HATCH: They wanted to get this bill passed.
VAN SUSTEREN: Meaning the Democrats.
HATCH: Yes, the Democrats. And they did it by a purely partisan vote. And they held back on a lot of things. For instance, they said nobody would pay increased taxes who make less than $250,000 a year. Now we find 25 percent of the people who make less than $250,000 a year are going to be paying additional taxes.
It is going to cost $10 billion just to enforce the mandates in the bill by the IRS.
VAN SUSTEREN: That's in this letter.
HATCH: That's $10 billion more. Keep in mind the total budget for the IRS today is $12 billion a year. So this is going to almost double the IRS total budget so they can force this mandate on the American people. It gets worse and worse.
I'll tell you, Greta, what's really involved. These people have a real plan here, in my opinion. They want this -- they know this system is going to fail. They know it is going to cost too much. They know it's not going to work, and then they'll throw their hands in the air and say the government has to do it all. We'll go to a single payment system. In the end that's what they are really after.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'll tell you the thing I found particularly distressing. There are a couple of layers of issues. One is the health care bill itself and whether the people like it or don't like it.
But the thing that is distressing I think at the outside the American people ought to know what's in it. And if it is a rush through so the CBO is saying they couldn't give us the candid anticipated cost because they got it rushed through, there really was no rush except Christmas day seemed to be a deadline.
I think that is going to distress the American people if they find the CBO is saying we didn't have time to give you the right numbers.
HATCH: Keep in mind the CBO is run by the Democrats. The head of the CBO is an honest man in my opinion, but he's a Democrat. In other words, they could have waited a little longer. They could have tried to build bipartisan vote on the health care bill.
VAN SUSTEREN: Which is another issue.
HATCH: Which is another issue. They rushed it through, and now they are telling us we weren't quite accurate in our assessments, in our economics. We knew they weren't accurate. We knew it is phony that the delay to increase all the taxes between now and 2014, to delay the benefits until 2014 is just phony.
VAN SUSTEREN: I don't know if they are saying they were inaccurate. They said they didn't have enough time because they rushed by the Democratic Party. And they are saying that the items that were left out in the original number was the discretionary spending, and that there's no absolute requirement that it be spent, but now we are going to come back and revisit that.
HATCH: I don't blame the Congressional Budget Office. I said all along it was going to cost a lot more than what they had estimated. And the fact is they rushed this to judgment, didn't even try to get a bipartisan vote on it, or should I say they didn't do anything to really entice people to vote together on it.
And now we are finding that it is a lot more costly than they said it would be. And not only that, enforcing it by the IRS is going to double the IRS budget. People are going to pay taxes who weren't supposed to pay taxes. Only the rich were supposed to be pay taxes.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592743,00.html
-------------------------------------------------
Administration Threatens to Veto Health Spending Bill After Price Tag Jumps
The Obama administration threatened to veto parts of its own health care bill after budget scorekeepers found that the package would add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending.
President Obama's budget office charged Congress with finding $115 billion in spending cuts or tax increases to offset the price tag hike. The figure approached the amount of money the Congressional Budget Office previously estimated the law would save, and pushed the total 10-year cost of the package past $1 trillion. It comes after a separate Medicare office report found the bill would raise spending by about 1 percent over the next decade.
But the Office of Management and Budget stood by the administration's original claims that the law would reduce the deficit and tasked Congress with making sure that happens -- or else.
"The Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first decade, and that will not change unless Congress acts to change it," budget office spokesman Ken Baer said. "If these authorizations are funded, they must be offset somewhere else in the discretionary budget. The president has called for a non-security discretionary spending freeze, and he will enforce that with his veto pen."
The Congressional Budget Office said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Indian health care.
The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation -- or not.
Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers.
Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.
The health care law provides coverage to more than 30 million people who are uninsured, offering tax credits to help them purchase health insurance through new competitive markets that will open for business in 2014. When Congress passed the bill in March, the CBO estimated the coverage expansion would cost $938 billion over 10 years, while reducing the federal deficit by $143 billion.
"If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the health care bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void," said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...est=latestnews
The Obama administration threatened to veto parts of its own health care bill after budget scorekeepers found that the package would add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending.
[...]
The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation — or not.
Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers.
Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.
Source:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/12/ob...ts-arent-made/
-------------------------------------------------
Hoodwinked by Health Care? CBO Estimate of Cost $115B More Than Original White House Estimate
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," May 12, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: OK, hold your breath and count to 115 billion. According to CBO, the health care bill could cost $150 billion more than the government originally thought. That makes the grand total more than $1 trillion for the health care bill.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who has been protesting that price tag for more than a year, goes "On the Record."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, nice to see you, sir.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH, R-UTAH: Nice to see you.
VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, I have this letter from the Congressional Budget Office to member Jerry Lewis, ranking member on the committee on appropriations about scoring the federal health care bill. We got an update on it. A huge $115 billion dollars over 10 years more?
HATCH: That's exactly right. They sold this bill as less than $1 trillion. And the gimmicked it up by not counting the first four years. It is really over 10 years $2.5 trillion.
But taking their word it is less than $1 trillion we now find it is $115 billion more so it is over $1 trillion. I might add there are all kinds of other costs they are not talking about here as well. So the budget will double in five years and triple in 10 years under the Obama administration. Health care is going to be one of the major reasons for the tripling.
VAN SUSTEREN: I read an article in the Associated Press asking the CBO why suddenly the $115 billion number now, and the Associated Press says the CBO says the reason they didn't tell us before is they didn't have enough time.
HATCH: They wanted to get this bill passed.
VAN SUSTEREN: Meaning the Democrats.
HATCH: Yes, the Democrats. And they did it by a purely partisan vote. And they held back on a lot of things. For instance, they said nobody would pay increased taxes who make less than $250,000 a year. Now we find 25 percent of the people who make less than $250,000 a year are going to be paying additional taxes.
It is going to cost $10 billion just to enforce the mandates in the bill by the IRS.
VAN SUSTEREN: That's in this letter.
HATCH: That's $10 billion more. Keep in mind the total budget for the IRS today is $12 billion a year. So this is going to almost double the IRS total budget so they can force this mandate on the American people. It gets worse and worse.
I'll tell you, Greta, what's really involved. These people have a real plan here, in my opinion. They want this -- they know this system is going to fail. They know it is going to cost too much. They know it's not going to work, and then they'll throw their hands in the air and say the government has to do it all. We'll go to a single payment system. In the end that's what they are really after.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'll tell you the thing I found particularly distressing. There are a couple of layers of issues. One is the health care bill itself and whether the people like it or don't like it.
But the thing that is distressing I think at the outside the American people ought to know what's in it. And if it is a rush through so the CBO is saying they couldn't give us the candid anticipated cost because they got it rushed through, there really was no rush except Christmas day seemed to be a deadline.
I think that is going to distress the American people if they find the CBO is saying we didn't have time to give you the right numbers.
HATCH: Keep in mind the CBO is run by the Democrats. The head of the CBO is an honest man in my opinion, but he's a Democrat. In other words, they could have waited a little longer. They could have tried to build bipartisan vote on the health care bill.
VAN SUSTEREN: Which is another issue.
HATCH: Which is another issue. They rushed it through, and now they are telling us we weren't quite accurate in our assessments, in our economics. We knew they weren't accurate. We knew it is phony that the delay to increase all the taxes between now and 2014, to delay the benefits until 2014 is just phony.
VAN SUSTEREN: I don't know if they are saying they were inaccurate. They said they didn't have enough time because they rushed by the Democratic Party. And they are saying that the items that were left out in the original number was the discretionary spending, and that there's no absolute requirement that it be spent, but now we are going to come back and revisit that.
HATCH: I don't blame the Congressional Budget Office. I said all along it was going to cost a lot more than what they had estimated. And the fact is they rushed this to judgment, didn't even try to get a bipartisan vote on it, or should I say they didn't do anything to really entice people to vote together on it.
And now we are finding that it is a lot more costly than they said it would be. And not only that, enforcing it by the IRS is going to double the IRS budget. People are going to pay taxes who weren't supposed to pay taxes. Only the rich were supposed to be pay taxes.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592743,00.html
-------------------------------------------------
Administration Threatens to Veto Health Spending Bill After Price Tag Jumps
The Obama administration threatened to veto parts of its own health care bill after budget scorekeepers found that the package would add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending.
President Obama's budget office charged Congress with finding $115 billion in spending cuts or tax increases to offset the price tag hike. The figure approached the amount of money the Congressional Budget Office previously estimated the law would save, and pushed the total 10-year cost of the package past $1 trillion. It comes after a separate Medicare office report found the bill would raise spending by about 1 percent over the next decade.
But the Office of Management and Budget stood by the administration's original claims that the law would reduce the deficit and tasked Congress with making sure that happens -- or else.
"The Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first decade, and that will not change unless Congress acts to change it," budget office spokesman Ken Baer said. "If these authorizations are funded, they must be offset somewhere else in the discretionary budget. The president has called for a non-security discretionary spending freeze, and he will enforce that with his veto pen."
The Congressional Budget Office said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Indian health care.
The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation -- or not.
Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers.
Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.
The health care law provides coverage to more than 30 million people who are uninsured, offering tax credits to help them purchase health insurance through new competitive markets that will open for business in 2014. When Congress passed the bill in March, the CBO estimated the coverage expansion would cost $938 billion over 10 years, while reducing the federal deficit by $143 billion.
"If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the health care bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void," said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...est=latestnews
Total Comments 0
