The Baucus fraud
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Jeffrey Anderson points out at the NY Post this morning that the Senate Finance Committee’s vote yesterday was on a fraud: Sen. Max Baucus’ “responsible” health-reform bill is not only a recipe for fiscal disaster - the Congressional Budget Office report that supposedly bolstered the bill actually exposes it. The details should leave every American scratching their heads wondering how such a fraud was allowed to even be voted on, let alone praised by liberal senators, the president of the United States, and overlooked by his adoring media.
[...] Baucus used all manner of budgetary gimmicks to oblige the CBO to give him the headlines he needed — a supposed pricetag of “just” $829 billion over 10 years, with enough other spending cuts and tax hikes to avoid adding to the federal deficit. But the CBO exposed the truth by taking the rare step of calculating what the bill would cost in its second 10 years.In its second decade alone, the CBO projects, the bill’s costs would triple — to $2.8 trillion. The taxes and fines it levies would also triple — to $1.8 trillion. And its cuts to Medicare and related federal health programs would quadruple — to $1.9 trillion.
In its first two decades combined, the bill would cost $3.6 trillion and would raise taxes by $2.3 trillion.
Baucus’ most elementary trick was to have the bill’s “first 10 years” include several years when it hadn’t really kicked in. It was scored for 2010 to 2019, yet it wouldn’t be in full swing until 2015 — when its costs would exceed those of its first five years combined.
In fact, the bill wouldn’t cost anything in 2010. In its real first decade (2011-20), it would cost more than $1 trillion.
Furthermore, the CBO projects that, by the end of 2030, the Baucus bill would have cut spending on Medicare and other existing health programs by more than $2.6 trillion.
This spring’s trustees report warned that the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund — which finances the largest part of Medicare — will be bankrupt by 2017. Baucus has identified hundreds of billions in Medicare savings — but uses it to finance his other spending, not to rescue the Trust Fund.
Read it all - the effects of the Baucus bill actually make things even worse.
Related:
Health Care Snowe Job (Eight Things to Know about the America’s Healthy Future Act)
Ruination From Obama-Baucus (The Baucus bill includes specific, overt, government health care rationing)
