Author Topic: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?  (Read 634 times)

Eyeball Chambers

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Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« on: March 23, 2010, 08:51:50 PM »
"When the comprehensive healthcare reform bill won approval from the House on Sunday, some of the swing lawmakers were won over by a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis showing the bill will slash the deficit by over $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years."

WTF?

???

Please explain!
S

240 is Back

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2010, 08:54:03 PM »
The CBO became an unreliable, crooked lying organization on jan 21, 2009.

before that, they were a non-partisan reliable source of national accounting.

Soul Crusher

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2010, 08:58:59 PM »
The CBO became an unreliable, crooked lying organization on jan 21, 2009.

before that, they were a non-partisan reliable source of national accounting.

Please.  In the morning i will destroy your post,  i cant fo it from my phone. 

Straw Man

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2010, 08:59:59 PM »
"When the comprehensive healthcare reform bill won approval from the House on Sunday, some of the swing lawmakers were won over by a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis showing the bill will slash the deficit by over $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years."

WTF?

???

Please explain!

Repubs don't do math

that's why their health care plan (what was it 15 pages or something like that) had no f'ng numbers

that's why all they can do now is yell baby killer

Straw Man

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2010, 09:02:10 PM »
Please.  In the morning i will destroy your post,  i cant fo it from my phone. 

good grief

now you're issuing pre-emptive threats from your cell phone

give it a rest man

GB will still be here tomorrow (unless the Dems take over this too)

240 is Back

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2010, 09:08:09 PM »
'Please.  In the morning i will destroy your post,  i cant fo it from my phone.  '

I remember you delivering a good breakdown on why the CBO numbers are unreliable.  however, if you can't trust them, who can you trust?  Also, was the CBO misleading during the entire last 9 years of borrowing?



god I'm so tired of this healthcare debate.  I see the benefits, but the cost is scary.  If only we knew if the CBO was correct or not.  If it's just a few fringe voices saying the CBO is wrong, okay, there are CTers on everything. 

But if the CBO is lying - then EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN shuld be talking about this 24/7.  Unless they are in on it too... ???  It's hard to say the CBo is a lib thinktank when Bush used them all the time, and the GOP leadership isn't accusing them of wrongdoing/misleading.

tonymctones

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2010, 09:19:05 PM »
I dont think anyone is saying the CBO is a liberal group 240...the fact is though they have cautioned that there are practices in the bill that will likely cause the price tag to rise...

and if im not mistaken they will revise their numbers again perhaps even 2 more times...kinda like they do with umemployment numbers...

you remember when you were blowing obama for the lowering of lost jobs? then after the holidays it jumped again?

how about when the GDP numbers came out and then they got revised down as they always do?

these numbers will be revised

Eyeball Chambers

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2010, 09:24:08 PM »
The CBO became an unreliable, crooked lying organization on jan 21, 2009.

before that, they were a non-partisan reliable source of national accounting.

haha, I'm not saying they're lying...

I was just looking for a little insight on how spending more will end up cutting our deficit?
S

Soul Crusher

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2010, 05:44:00 AM »
The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform
By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN
www.nyt.com


Published: March 20, 2010

Arlington, Va.

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs — health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits — would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.

Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.

Consider, too, the fate of the $70 billion in premiums expected to be raised in the first 10 years for the legislation’s new long-term health care insurance program. This money is counted as deficit reduction, but the benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.

Another vivid example of how the legislation manipulates revenues is the provision to have corporations deposit $8 billion in higher estimated tax payments in 2014, thereby meeting fiscal targets for the first five years. But since the corporations’ actual taxes would be unchanged, the money would need to be refunded the next year. The net effect is simply to shift dollars from 2015 to 2014.

In addition to this accounting sleight of hand, the legislation would blithely rob Peter to pay Paul. For example, it would use $53 billion in anticipated higher Social Security taxes to offset health care spending. Social Security revenues are expected to rise as employers shift from paying for health insurance to paying higher wages. But if workers have higher wages, they will also qualify for increased Social Security benefits when they retire. So the extra money raised from payroll taxes is already spoken for. (Indeed, it is unlikely to be enough to keep Social Security solvent.) It cannot be used for lowering the deficit.

A government takeover of all federally financed student loans — which obviously has nothing to do with health care — is rolled into the bill because it is expected to generate $19 billion in deficit reduction.

Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress is likely to continue to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and other providers.

Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.

The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less.

The stakes could not be higher. As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt.

The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005, is the president of the American Action Forum, a policy institute.

 



Soul Crusher

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2010, 05:59:37 AM »
The CBO became an unreliable, crooked lying organization on jan 21, 2009.

before that, they were a non-partisan reliable source of national accounting.

Check this out. 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2810162/obama_lies_former_cbo_head_says_deficits.html?cat=75


shootfighter1

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2010, 06:42:25 AM »
Good article 333.  The main problem is the CBO scores cost based on the #s and assumptions given to them by the administration....and these guys are slick, not to mention the double counting that the former head of the CBO brought up.  The savings are far overestimated.  The stars would have to allign for all their rosy predictions to work and actually save $ with this bill.


Soul Crusher

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2010, 06:44:06 AM »
Good article 333.  The main problem is the CBO scores cost based on the #s and assumptions given to them by the administration....and these guys are slick, not to mention the double counting that the former head of the CBO brought up.  The savings are far overestimated.  The stars would have to allign for all their rosy predictions to work and actually save $ with this bill.



This was a political flim flam like i have never seen before all to appeal to gullible people like Straw, Mons, Blacken, Benny, and maybe 240, but I am not sure. 

Shoot - check out my thread on Lindsey Graham on Greata as to what is going on with this.  Its really shocking and horrific.   

BM OUT

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2010, 06:46:31 AM »
If the CBO is a government org. then they cant be trusted.Can ANYONE name one time EVER that a government program came in under cost predictions?Can anyone name one time when a government program didnt come in at least  twice the the predicted cost?The government could fuck up A wet dream on a rainy night.They have failed at EVERYTHING they have tried,other then cutting taxes and allowing us to run our own lives.

tonymctones

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Re: Congressional Budget Office/Healthcare?
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2010, 09:01:13 AM »
Good article 333.  The main problem is the CBO scores cost based on the #s and assumptions given to them by the administration....and these guys are slick, not to mention the double counting that the former head of the CBO brought up.  The savings are far overestimated.  The stars would have to allign for all their rosy predictions to work and actually save $ with this bill.


READ THIS 240 and educate yourself the CBO takes what is given to them and evaluates it...you remember in math class when you were told if you put garbage in an equation youll get garbage out?

well you cant put disingenuious numbers and assumptions in to the CBO and expect to get an honest assesment of the costs  ::)