More evidence Obamacare is a nightmare for taxpayers
In October, the Obama administration acknowledged that the portion of Obamacare that contributed the most deficit “reduction” — the CLASS Act, which created a new long-term care entitlement and allegedly was going to reduce deficits by $86 billion between 2012 and 2021 — was unworkable. The House this month voted to repeal the law, while the White House seeks a way to fix it. But the clear bottom line was that more than two-thirds of the $124 billion in promised deficit “savings” during these 10 years was unlikely ever to materialize.
Now, President Obama’s new budget finishes off the always-ludicrous notion that he could create a new, $1 trillion-a-decade entitlement and somehow reduce deficits. Avik Roy reports at Forbes:
The White House’s fiscal year 2013 budget adds $111 billion in exchange spending between 2014 and 2021, with even more spending to come in future years. … In 2021 alone, the difference between the two budgets is almost $20 billion, implying that exchange spending will be up by over $200 billion in the decade following 2021.
For the math-challenged: Subtracting $86 billion and $111 billion from an alleged deficit reduction of $124 billion equals a deficit increase of $73 billion. And this is the best-case scenario, as Roy goes on to explain:
If businesses do what the new health law clearly incentivizes them to do, exchange spending could be up by over $2 trillion in the decade following 2021.
The incentive to which Roy refers is the fact that Obamacare makes it relatively cheaper for employers to dump their health coverage, pay a fine and let employees use federal subsidies to buy health insurance in the federally mandated exchanges.
The costs for the most reckless piece of federal law in at least a generation only continue to rise, just as all of us who opposed Obamacare predicted. And the forecasts are only going to get worse with each passing year, if only because we are now burning through the years when Obamacare front-loaded new tax revenues before really adding new spending; that was another of the budgetary ruses Democrats used to create the fiction that Obamacare was fiscally responsible.
It is increasingly clear that taking the law completely off the books is the only way to avoid a true fiscal catastrophe.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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296 comments Add your comment
Dusty
March 5th, 2012
5:05 pm
Michael H. Smith.
What do you mean by “corporal Corporatists in cahoots with the medical establishments” regarding healthcare?
If you are referring to ObamaCare, I think doctors had very little to do with its formation. Doctors are the brains and spine of medical establishments and “healthcare” produced without them is worthless. Unless ObamaCare is a mistake by which we learn, I see no value and much determent to the medical needs of this country.
Medical corporations such as pharmaceuticals are doing most of the research in the field of medicine. They may have their faults but conducting expensive research is not one of them no matter why they do it.
snoqualmiepass
March 5th, 2012
5:10 pm
Love these comments on the new healthcare rules some label “Obamacare”
So I guess we should call the German National Healthcare ” TrumanCare” or EisenhowerCare, since this stipulation is in the German constitution written by…… Americans…. Or Japanese National Healthcare as more “TrumanCare” or General McCartherCare” since again, the good General and Mr. Truman wrote the Japanese Constitution. So it looks like I’ll be required to remind y’all every time you bring up this subject.
euler
March 5th, 2012
5:18 pm
Dusty: You keep repeating the often-stated but always-wrong claim that 50% of Americans do not pay taxes. Please stop. The correct statement is that 50% of Americans do not pay _federal income_ tax. However, there are a variety of other taxes.
It is difficult to estimate the overall tax burden, since taxes can vary wildly over different jurisdictions (both city, county, and state), but the following report from 2009 does give at least some statistics: http://cfo.dc.gov/cfo/frames.asp?doc=/cfo/lib/cfo/09STUDY.pdf
Of particular note is the fact that a family of three making 25,000 a year had a higher average tax burden than a family of three making 150,000 a year (see page 8 versus page 12).
Our tax system certainly does need to be reformed, but repeating false claims does nothing to help.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
March 5th, 2012
5:21 pm
Don’t tell me you just figured out that dummycrats lie, Kyle?
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
5:21 pm
“The correct statement is that 50% of Americans do not pay _federal income_ tax.”
Either way you want to state isn’t good. That’s pretty damn bad.
“Our tax system certainly does need to be reformed”
AMEN!
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
5:21 pm
Dear Dusty
I can see that in spite of my advice to drop your ridiculous argument about the country size you are still trying to defend it. How can I make you understand? Let’s try this. Hypothetically, consider dividing the US into two countries with half of population each. Say, take certain states into one half, and other states into the other half, each new country about 165 million. So you have the original US, and those two smaller countries. You can even divide it further, into four countries. You do not change anything about taxes. Will it become less difficult to health-insure any of those smaller countries than the current USA? That is what you argued, that it is the size of the US that makes it difficult. Can you explain why it would be?
You have not made any new points, and stated only generalities, that do not contribute anything to the discussion.
Finally, about your question regarding the English language. Why don’t you give specifics, rather than something this general?
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
5:22 pm
“Of particular note is the fact that a family of three making 25,000 a year ”
A Starbucks barista can make more than that. Whoever is making 25/year needs to find another job or another skill set.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
March 5th, 2012
5:23 pm
Looks to me like the $150K family paid over $12000, while the $25K family only paid $2750.
Why didn’t the $25K family pay their fair share?
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
5:23 pm
“Will it become less difficult to health-insure any of those smaller countries than the current USA?”
That question makes absolutely no sense. Try to live in the real world for a change.
Michael H. Smith
March 5th, 2012
5:25 pm
Excuse me Dusty but I went back to read what I believe you’re referring to though my spelling appears correct on my screen as “corporate” not “corporal”
I’ll agree on your point in regards to most doctors hating the “Medical Establishment” and Government control. But Dusty, please don’t bother to tell me about doctors, our eldest son is a forensic pathologist.
You will not get any sympathy for Big Pharma from me and I know how to read the financial page Dusty. The Drug industry has the highest profit margins in the medical sector first of all and second, these same drug companies sell these same drugs in foreign countries for a lot less because WE PAY THE COST DIFFERENCE.Thirdly a lot of that research you cite is done at TAXPAYER FUNDED UNIVERSITIES for which drug companies get for little or nothing. The rest of the medical industry isn’t struggling to survive.
Rafe Hollister
March 5th, 2012
5:26 pm
Nothing in the world will bring out the gimme or free stuff for all crowd, like someone pointing out that what they are getting is not sustainable or free.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
March 5th, 2012
5:26 pm
It looks like Dirty Floor Fluke might be a scientist-
She even got a bachelor’s degree in something called “Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.”
Or a professional pervert.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
March 5th, 2012
5:27 pm
Something ain’t right with your source, euler, because some families in the $150K income range paid zero income taxes, according to page 12. I haven’t had time to read the whole thing though. The taxes paid by such a family appear to be lowballed by a huge margin.
Pay your fair share, $25K families!
Linda
March 5th, 2012
5:30 pm
Obama needs him a Fair Czar. Maybe he could borrow that outfit from King Burger King & swap out an Obamacare waver in exchange.
Has anyone actually seen the Food Police yet? What do they wear? My husband still can’t understand why I’m keeping the salt & sugar are under our bed.
ld
March 5th, 2012
5:43 pm
If Obamacare is not overturned by US Supreme Court this spring, this entitlement will ‘break the bank’;
Because the Obamacare “insurance” is being bought via private, for mega-profit companies, the price will rise well beyond what the “poor” Obama contends he intends to cover can afford. That means those premiums will be paid by taxpayers–along w/any deductible/copay.
Eventually, we will need an alternate plan.
It would make more sense to use the existing county health departments–seriously enhanced–to provide care to the poorest of the poor.
Along w/county hospitals and w/licensed medical providers–people and entitie– that accept taxpayer or gov’t supported funding–directly or indirectly: this replace Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, federally supported insurance, and even veterans care for civilians
(except, perhaps, at VA hospitals designed to provide immediate and interim care for war wounded for active duty personnel and as they transition from military to civilian life)
and would make up the “public” medical system.
and then leave the TOTALLY PRIVATE SECTOR totally to the private sector–BUT the private medical system could, reasonably, require larger licensing fees, etc., AND…
Licensed medical professionals and entities should NOT be able to opt in–in profitable part–but then opt out of the public system when/where it is less profitable.
If any licensed medical professional–individual or entity–receives ANY taxpayer or gov’t supported funding–directly or indirectly–any at all, including but not limited to such as if any doctor is permited to practice at any hospital that receives ANY taxpayer or gov’t supported funding (directly or indirectly), then those licensed medical professionals MUST be required to participate in the “public” medical system, specifically including any program set up w/i every county in which live and/or in which they are practicing medicine AND accept rules and regulations for the same–including limitations and exclusions and authorized fee amounts. Medicare and medicaid and gov’t supported insurance & medical benefits would remain totally w/i the “public” medical system.
Additionally, each state should reasonably be able to set up a system that serves its citizens needs–counties w/in every state should be able to send patients across county lines to medical professionals w/i need field of expertise so as to not limit available care.
For emergencies during travel, a state-to-state swap system would need to be in place.
This will, of course, result in asmall “elite” medical community and a “public” medical community. (I suspect the elites–insurers and providers–will soon realize just how much public money they have been receiving, directly and indirectly while screaming for gov’t to stay out of their busines, especially when insurers must cover the extreme costs for caring for the elderly w/o gov’t subsidy.
Bob
March 5th, 2012
5:44 pm
How many Obama voters actually think that healthcare companies will give away free stuff. Instead of going for $10 a month contraceptives, why not pay for our own but make insurance companies give everything else for free.
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
5:52 pm
Do what?????? @5:23 pm: Mark V: “Will it become less difficult to health-insure any of those smaller countries than the current USA?”
“That question makes absolutely no sense. Try to live in the real world for a change.”
True, the question does not make sense to somebody who is incapable to think.
Linda
March 5th, 2012
5:54 pm
Obamacare discriminates against both age & gender. Women use birth control about half of their lives. Therefore, it discriminates against young girls & older women. Men don’t use birth control pills & are left out in the cold, where most of them belong, anyway.
Rather than birth control pills, I vote for shoes, perfume, tools & fishing poles.
That’s FAIRNESS!
Dusty
March 5th, 2012
6:01 pm
Dear euler,
OK, you want me to say that only 50% pay FEDERAL taxes but others pay taxes in many ways. . OK. But ObamaCare is going to be paid by Federal taxes while being supplied for all citizens. That’s 50% of the population paying for the healthcare of 100%. Yes?
————————————————-
Michael Smith.
There seems to be a misunderstanding. Doctors are the brain and spine of the medical establishment is what I said. Cetainly do not hate them. My father was a doctor and I have been in laboratory medicine for many years, all working under a pathologist, (one of them named Smith). My daughter has a PhD in biochemistry along with other degrees. She is currentlhy doing research in medical equipment when quality control indicates a problem. She is paid by the company.
I believe that corporations are doing more research in new pharmaceuticals/equipment while universities are working on the biochemical effects and the results of patients. I think our country excels in all research and I’m glad of that.
———————————————–
Mark V
You can’t divide the USA in four pieces and say it would work better. Can’t follow your argument about 4 pieces.. Smaller is not necessarily cheaper. Whatever.
Anyway, I do not consider Obamacare a workable plan and I hope the Supreme Court will throw out the whole patched up unpopular expensive system. We can do better than ObamaCare .
The Rush Dialectic
March 5th, 2012
6:06 pm
All women who use birth control are s!uts;
If her birth control is covered by her medical insurance, that makes her a pro$titute.
Dusty
March 5th, 2012
6:14 pm
Linda,
BurgerKing is a great place. I like to go to my special one for a quick hamburger that always tastes good.
The Food Police may get me but I will die happy ….hamburger in hand!
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:21 pm
“True, the question does not make sense to somebody who is incapable to think.’
Yeah, that’s it. (sarcasm)
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:21 pm
“She even got a bachelor’s degree in something called “Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.”
And like Bookman’s poet daughter, she’ll be moving back in with mom and dad.
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
6:24 pm
Dusty @6:01 pm: “You can’t divide the USA in four pieces and say it would work better. Can’t follow your argument about 4 pieces. Smaller is not necessarily cheaper.”
Dusty, I am almost giving up, but I will try one more time. At 12:27 pm you made the following argument: “Now common sense had already told us that you cannot provide good “free” birth to death healthcare for every citizen in a country as big as ours. It is so obvious that it cannot be done. It will bring about bankruptcy and taxpayers know it.”
In other words, you tied the possibility of providing healthcare (I ignore the “free” part, which everybody knows is absurd and does not change the argument) to the size of the country (“in a country as big as ours”). In effect, you were arguing that a smaller country might do what a bigger country cannot. I call that defying common sense. Therefore, I showed you the argument about dividing US into smaller parts. Each part would have proportionately fewer people to take care of, but also proportionately fewer resources, i.e., the amount of the taxes. If you bristle at the hypothetical idea of dividing the USA, all you have to do is to imagine another country with half the population of the US, half the GDP, same health condition of the citizens, with the same tax structure, therefore half the tax revenue. The tax revenue per capita would be exactly same as for the twice the size USA. Why would it be less difficult for this imaginary country to provide health care, than for the bigger US?
St Simons - codewords are the new black
March 5th, 2012
6:28 pm
aww, 10 years into the future? really? really? that’s the soonest
poutrage you could come up with?
don’t worry, we’ll have universal coverage way before then,
right after we take yer gunnnns
and put em in those survivor seed canisters
and get back on the gold standard
and finish legislatin them wimmens uterus-es
and open those FEMA camps
on the trans ‘merka hiway to Mexico Citeh
President Chavez will take care of it (wink) after the 28th amendment
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
March 5th, 2012
6:30 pm
Do what?????? @ 6:21- Crack me up, man. That was good.
~~~~~
You won’t get apologies from people like Bill Maher or all the other leftists who have said some of the most horrible, d-e-s-p-i-c-a-b-l-e things about us, and people like Sarah Palin. They get rewarded for those d-e-s-p-i-c-a-b-le things. They get to make movies out of their d-e-s-p-i-c-a-b-l-e things and amplify them. But all of the other leftists that call me and other conservatives the most rude and explicit names, never an apology. In fact, they get patted on the back. Don’t expect apologies. They are never going to apologize to you or me or any of us. That’s the difference between them and us, and it’s one more reason why ultimately we will prevail over them.
Rush is just sayin…
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
March 5th, 2012
6:31 pm
Kyle, d-e-s-p-i-c-a-b-l-e will not make it by the censor without all the dashes, just sayin…
Michael H. Smith
March 5th, 2012
6:34 pm
Dusty
The medical device makers have the second highest profit margin in the medical sector: So they certainly aren’t financial dire straights.
Doctors are not the problem for the most part in my view. Many doctors are being victimized as much as the patients they can no longer afford to treat. Some have given up their practice because of that fact and it broke their hearts – No I don’t blame them(doctors) for having bad feelings or yes, HATING THE ESTABLISHMENT SYSTEM. They have every right after all they did to become a doctor to then have government, insurance companies and lawyers take it all from them… HELL YES I’D HATE IT TOO!
Perhaps you feel everything is fine, the medical establishment system we had before obumerCare wasn’t broken, so why should anyone fix it(Standard Republican Answer) .
If that is the case, I couldn’t disagree with you more.
It needs reform for numbers of reasons: Cost are too high, access is too minimal(in some rural areas non-existent), too little market competition, virtually no individual healthcare insurance portability and we have an aging population that will be dependent on Medicare which obumer gutted to the tune of $500 billion(all the more reason to take it out of political control), etc. etc., etc.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
March 5th, 2012
6:38 pm
“It is impossible,” Tocqueville writes, “to believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever emerge from the ballots of a nation of servants. The American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint.
Yep and he’s been proven right.
We should be so proud of ourselves, not.
Pizzaman
March 5th, 2012
6:39 pm
I have chosen not to read any of this from word one of Kyle’s crap. It has been the mission of the Tea-Redneck- Limbaugh loving-Bigot- Republicans to get the N….. out of “their” White House. You want “your” Country back? Well I want you out of “my country”. What have any of you done for “your ” country.I fought in Vietnam. What have any of you done except show your hatred of Black people!
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
6:39 pm
Linda 4:59 pm@: MarkV@1:06, “The more taxpayers, the more taxpayer money available.”
“ Hey, liberal women, Mark is trying to take away your “free” contraception coverage so we can have more babies that grow up & become taxpayers so the government can have even more money to spend. You will just have to be satisfied with “free” windshield wiper blades from Obama.”
Linda, only now I have noticed your post above, which has an even lower quality than the usually poor quality of your posts. I did not intend to go back to the contraception debate again, but since you have started, here is my response:
The recent debate on this blog regarding Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Ms Fluke was revealing. Not because ragnar danneskjold and Tiberius repeated what Peggy Noonan, a conservative with whom I almost never agree on anything, called crude, rude, even piggish, what another conservative, Kathleen Parker, called vile, repugnant, a behavior deserving contempt, demeaning to a young woman who was merely voicing her opinion. That was to be expected from those two, just as Tiberius’ lying, and when caught in a web of the lie, his trashing and slashing rather than admitting it. Neither was surprising td’s babbling and whining that I had not presented an argument. Argument to show that people should not without justification crudely, rudely and piggishly insult people they do not know because of voicing an opinion?
No, the revealing part was the behavior of the prominent conservative woman on this blog, Linda, who chose to insert herself into the debate, but did not show the decency to denounce the insults. Linda, you can deceive herself by calling yourself a lady, but you have failed the test.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
March 5th, 2012
6:43 pm
I see MarkV has his panties in a wad again today.
You wanna butch it up a bit tonight, MarkV?
Michael H. Smith
March 5th, 2012
6:45 pm
Dusty
March 5th, 2012
6:14 pm
Enjoy… I’ll be waiting with all my CHF and BP research info in hand, though, something tells me you’re just clowning around. Between fast food and processed food who needs obumer’s population control czars?
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
6:46 pm
Tiberius – Your lightning rod of hate! @6:43 pm: “You wanna butch it up a bit tonight, MarkV?”
Not with fools and liars. Therefore, you are excluded on both counts.
Linda
March 5th, 2012
6:50 pm
Michael@4:54, Me, too.
@5:02, I don’t accept “free” medicines. We pay our own way. Otherwise, I agree.
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:50 pm
“The recent debate on this blog regarding Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Ms Fluke was revealing.”
She’s a slut plain and simple. If that idiot can’t afford birth control yet she can afford 50 grand for law school, she’s an effing moron.
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:51 pm
“Crack me up, man. That was good.”
Just telling it like it is, yo! His daughter is going to be unemployed real soon because there isn’t a market for people with degrees in Maya Angeloooooooo.
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:52 pm
Pizzaman ain’t getting a tip.
Do what??????
March 5th, 2012
6:53 pm
“Not with fools and liars.”
So stop being a fool and a liar.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
March 5th, 2012
6:53 pm
MarkV doesn’t want to engage his betters in debate.
Typical.
MarkV
March 5th, 2012
6:58 pm
No debate with fools and liars. Therefore, Tiberius is excluded on both counts.
Linda
March 5th, 2012
7:02 pm
Dusty@6:14, In California, some municipalities have banned “free” junk toys with kids’ meals. If I was a momma in CA., I would buy & take my own junk toys to the fast food restaurants & insert them in the sacks, just for my rights as a parent.
The next thing we will know, CA will be replacing junk toys with condoms.
Liberals eat their children
March 5th, 2012
7:11 pm
Obama must go at all costs. Obama the traitor must go. Obama has done too much damage to America. And send his ugly fat butt wife Michele with him. We can’t afford anymore Obama vacations on the taxpayer’s dime I mean millions.
Tiberius - Your lightning rod of hate!
March 5th, 2012
7:15 pm
Liberals eat their children, we try to debate issues with substance here on Kyle’s blog.
We leave the hyperbole and nonsense to Trash, getaclue and MarkV.
Step up your game, please.
Liberals eat their children
March 5th, 2012
7:21 pm
The DNC was behind this contraception matter. It was designed to piss off the women voters for the GOP. It’s just a trick by the democrat deceivers to fool you and get you to vote for the racist idiot Obama and company. Typical Democrat liars and the useful idiots in the mainstreet media like Jay and older brother Jim in this same rag of a newspaper. This 30 year old women that was called a slut by Rush is just that a 30 year old democrat community organizer slut. This is the type of stuff the democrats will do in this election. So wake up and don’t be fooled again folks. How come the mainstreet media isn’t mad at the liberal democrats and the Obama people for all the ugly things they have said about conservatives and whites???????????
ragnar danneskjold
March 5th, 2012
7:38 pm
Thank goodness the criticism of yours truly was from MarkV rather than from someone with any credibility.
ragnar danneskjold
March 5th, 2012
7:38 pm
With MarkV it is all epithets all the time – never any room for substance.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
March 5th, 2012
7:41 pm
Bob: How many Ob[ozo] voters actually think
——————
None of them. That’s why they’re Obozo voters.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
March 5th, 2012
7:42 pm
If that idiot can’t afford birth control yet she can afford 50 grand for law school, she’s an effing moron.
——————
Word.
Pizzaman
March 5th, 2012
7:46 pm
Do What @ 6:52—
Here’s two tips.
No President Can repeal any law. Congress has to do it. So if a Republican wins they also have to have Congress to do anything.
The main parts of the new health care bill don’t take affect till 2014. So all the Republican …. about how much it’s costing now is just that …. . And IF your payment to your company’s provided health benefit has increased in the last few years it has nothing to do with any Federal Law. Most health care is still unregulated hence all the arguments including the birth control one.
Oh yea one more. 28 states already require what the administration, cover birth control, has ordered. And yes GA is one of the 28. How come Kyle and the rest of you redneckrepublicans haven’t bitched about your state and the republicans how mandated what your bitching about???
Get a clue! Learn! OPS forgot, closed minded people have no personal opinions they let someone else think for them.