The CBO released new cost estimates for ObamaCare yesterday that deserve a closer look . These estimates are of the total cost of the coverage provisions of the health care law from 2012 to 2021. Here are the changes from the previous estimates, by the numbers:
Total Cost of the Coverage Provisions, March 2011: $1.131 TrillionTotal Cost of the Coverage Provisions, March 2012: $1.083 Trillion
Total Cost of Insurance Exchange Subsidies, March 2011: $777 BillionTotal Cost of Insurance Exchange Subsidies, March 2012: $681 Billion
Medicaid and CHIP Outlays, March 2011: $627 Billion Medicaid and CHIP Outlays, March 2012: $795 Billion
CBO sees a net reduction of $38 billion in the total cost of the health care law between 2012 and 2021. These net reductions primarily came from a technical and statutory changes that reduce costs, improved projections of revenues from penalties, and a reduction in the projected growth rate of insurance premiums.
These new projections may carry positive headlines about the reduction of costs, but under the surface these numbers are anything but positive. The net cost of Medicaid and CHIP over this ten year window increases by $168 billion. The number of projected newly insured individuals fell by 2 million. Since passage of the bill the gross cost of the coverage provisions over ten years has jumped from $940 billion to $1.759 trillion just two years later. On a straight line projection the law is projected to cost well over $2 trillion in the first ten years of actual implementation.
These numbers are anything but positive. They exhibit more spending, more penalties, and more taxes.
-Spencer Harris