From the Daily Signal:
Among President Obama’s many high-profile health care promises, there is this gem from his 2009 address to Congress: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits–either now or in the future.”
But according to Republican staff on Senate Budget Committee, those dimes are starting to pile up. The Senate staff report says that the Affordable Care Act will add $131 billion to the federal deficits over the period 2015 to 2024.
In brief, the Republican Senate Budget Committee staff say that, based on an extrapolation from the July 2012 estimate of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the projected ACA contribution to deficit reduction would amount to $180 billion over the period 2015 to 2024. Positive factors, based on CBO analyses, contribute to that portion of the ten-year deficit reduction.
For example, the implementation of the health insurance coverage provisions of the law, as CBO estimated in April of 2014, improves the overall deficit outlook because the 10-year cost of those provisions (reflecting, among other things, narrower networks of doctors and hospitals) is now estimated to be $83 billion less than what CBO projected in 2012. Score one for a deficit decrease.
But, the Republican Senate Budget Committee staff, who report to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., also note, certain other intervening factors interrupt this progress toward fiscal rectitude. Over the period 2007 to 2010, before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, CBO found that Medicare spending growth per capita was 3.8 percent, compared to 7.1 percent over the period 2000 to 2005.
Read more: The Daily Signal
