Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 6)
12 August
Continuing with the series, here is the President talking about health care reform in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
THE PRESIDENT: And we will do this without adding to our deficit over the next decade, largely by cutting out the waste and insurance company giveaways in Medicare that aren’t making any of our seniors healthier.
(later) First of all, I said I won’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt. Okay? So this will have to be paid for.
And yet:
- CBO says the House bill would increase federal deficits by $239 B over the next ten years.
- CBO says the House bill would increase the deficit in 2019 by $65 B, meaning the bill fails the President’s “10th year test.”
- CBO says the House bill would result in increasing deficits beyond 2019, because the new spending would grow faster than 8% per year, while the offsets would grow only about 5% per year.
- The House bill would not just slow Medicare growth, but would also raise taxes on high-income individuals and small business owners.
Continue to the next post in this series…
Other posts in this series:
- The President’s overpromise that everyone can keep their health plan
- Putting the government in charge of your health insurance
- Waiting in line
- Government-mandated benefits
- Preventive care does not save money (in the aggregate)
Related Posts
(best matches are listed first)- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 10)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 18)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 19)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 8)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 1)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 15)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 14)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 20)
And one more important bullet point to add to Keith's first three:
Even if the offsets were designed to be deficit-neutral over the long-term, "reform" would still make it more difficult (meaning requiring greater sacrifices) to solve the problem of our enormous, unsustainable long-term fiscal imbalance (which will require great sacrifices even without increasing federal spending) because tax increases and spending reductions used as offsets for increased spending will obviously not still be available for deficit-reduction, leaving us with the need to make even greater and more painful sacrifices than we otherwise would have to make.
I don't know why those asterisks are showing up. Apparently the blog's new filtering system is a little goofy.
President Obama seems to be selling a bill other than what the House has put forward.
Easily explained, Terry. The president has no idea what the House has put forward. He just keeps blathering, trying to find the promises that will gain more support for the bill. He wants a healthcare bill passed, no matter what is in it. He has no idea how to stop talking.
Here's a point I really don't get. If there is "waste and insurance company giveaways in Medicare that aren’t making any of our seniors healthier," why do you need a comprehensive health care bill to fix it and then call it funding for the bill? You should fix the waste first, show us the savings, and then decide the most important use for that money.