This is #18 in a series of 20 posts discussing the President’s remarks on health care reform in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

THE PRESIDENT: So it’s about a hundred billion dollars a year to cover everybody and to implement some of the insurance reforms that we’re talked about.

I assume this is just an honest arithmetic error, in which he assumed that a trillion dollars of new spending would be spread out over 10 years. Since the spending doesn’t start until year 4, and isn’t fully phased-in until year 6, the actual spending is much higher. The House bill would increase federal spending by $202 B in 2019, the 10th year of the estimate, twice the President’s stated figure.

Other posts in this series:

  1. The President’s overpromise that everyone can keep their health plan
  2. Putting the government in charge of your health insurance
  3. Waiting in line
  4. Government-mandated benefits
  5. Preventive care does not save money (in the aggregate)
  6. The House bill would increase short-term, 10th year, and long-term budget deficits
  7. The President was incorrect — AARP opposes the bill
  8. The bills would take Medicare savings needed for solvency and spend them on a new entitlement
  9. Medicare is not a good example of government-run health care because Medicare is fiscally unsustainable
  10. Even if the public option drops out of legislation, other parts of these bills would put private insurance under government control
  11. The President says the public option will keep private insurers honest at the same time he proposes cutting payments to private insurers competing with the Medicare public option
  12. The pending bills would move more cost-benefit decisions from insurers to people chosen by the government
  13. Guaranteed renewal and guaranteed issue
  14. The President says “we may be able to get even more than” the $80 B of budgetary savings that the pharmaceutical industry thought was a ceiling promised by the White House.
  15. The President says he’s not “promoting” a single-payer plan, but the only concern he raises is a disruptive transition.
  16. Many examples suggest that the government cannot compete on a level playing field with private firms.
  17. The President trashes the U.S. Postal Service and undermines the case that government can run a complex health system.