27 thoughts on “ObamaCare Will Reduce The Deficit”

  1. a fiscal fool, or a Democrat. But I repeat myself.

    No, you don’t. The only modern president to run a surplus was a Democrat, and no fiscal fool. The GOP congressmen who voted unanimously against that president’s 1993 budget, predicting that it would destroy the economy — now those were fiscal fools.

    I’ll take the CBO over some guy who “presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies” any day. The CBO is the fairest fiscal arbiter available, and the fact that the CBO says the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit clearly drives the right crazy. And when the facts don’t match the right’s ideology, out go the facts.

    Standing by for Rand’s ad-hominem rebuttal in 3, 2, 1…

  2. The GOP congressmen who voted unanimously against that president’s 1993 budget, predicting that it would destroy the economy — now those were fiscal fools.

    Thank you for demonstrating your fiscal foolishness again. That 1993 budget wasn’t in surplus. That president didn’t get a surplus (or even any plan for one) until he got a Republican Congress that was willing to rein in his spending. Sadly, they lost that will when they got a Republican, but non-conservative president.

    The CBO is the fairest fiscal arbiter available, and the fact that the CBO says the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit clearly drives the right crazy.

    Because it’s based on the fiscal insanity that Congress provided them. As Blumer says, it’s not CBO’s fault. It’s called garbage in, garbage out.

  3. Great article. I do believe the CBO tries to do the best job they can, and I agree that both the Republicans and the Democrats are likely to try and influence CBO outcomes by specifying both the assumptions and the limitations on what they ask the CBO to score.

    Since I have no faith that either side of the aisle will grow up, wouldn’t it be nice if when one side asks the CBO to score something, the other side could review the results and then ask the CBO to re-score the request with certain corrections added in?

    For example, when the health care bill was recently scored at $999 billion, just coming in under the trillion dollar limit promised by Obama, it would have been nice if the opposition could have asked CBO to re-score their estimates given the obvious omission of the doc fix?

  4. Jim – “No, you don’t. The only modern president to run a surplus was a Democrat, and no fiscal fool.”

    Are you calling Eisenhower a recent president or do you just make stuff up?

    The fact is that the US debt has gone up every year since 1957. When there is a surplus the debt goes down.

  5. Thank you for demonstrating your fiscal foolishness again. That 1993 budget wasn’t in surplus. That president didn’t get a surplus (or even any plan for one) until he got a Republican Congress that was willing to rein in his spending. Sadly, they lost that will when they got a Republican, but non-conservative president.

    When Reagan was President there was a Democratic Congress if I remember correctly. So was the economy great because of the President or the Congress? If the President can ultimately veto any budget, or even line-item, IMO that is where the buck stops.

  6. When Reagan was President there was a Democratic Congress if I remember correctly. So was the economy great because of the President or the Congress?

    We were discussing the size of deficits, not the state of the economy. And there is no line-item veto, according to the Supreme Court.

  7. When Reagan was President there was a Democratic Congress if I remember correctly. So was the economy great because of the President or the Congress? If the President can ultimately veto any budget, or even line-item, IMO that is where the buck stops.

    Reagan had a Republican contolled Senate from 1981-1987. Democrats controlled the House during his whole presidency. This was at a time when there were Democrats with a clue like Scoop Jackson – a rare if not extinct species today.

    No US president has a line-item veto. IIRC, Congress did pass one back in the 1990s but it was overturned by the courts. A president proposes a budget but it frequently is declared “dead on arrival” if Congress (at least the House) is controlled by the opposition party. Congress then drafts their own budget and the president can either accept it or veto it.

  8. That 1993 budget wasn’t in surplus.

    No one said it was. But its tax hikes — decried at the time as growth-killing — are a major reason we got to a surplus.

    Because it’s based on the fiscal insanity that Congress provided them

    Keep telling yourself that. If it was that easy to influence CBO scores, you wouldn’t have the unpopular revenue items in the ACA.

    There are limitations to CBO forecasts — for example, the CBO overestimated the cost of most recent health care programs — but they’re the best we have. You just don’t like the reality that this plan balances its expenses and revenue, so you go after the messenger. If the CBO was saying that health reform was going to explode the deficit, you’d be their biggest fan.

  9. But its tax hikes — decried at the time as growth-killing — are a major reason we got to a surplus.

    There is zero reason to believe that. They weren’t “tax hikes.” They were tax-rate hikes. The growth rate (and actual revenues) would likely have been higher without them.

    You just don’t like the reality that this plan balances its expenses and revenue, so you go after the messenger.

    No, I don’t like that lie.

  10. for example, the CBO overestimated the cost of most recent health care programs

    For example, the CBO underestimated the cost of most recent health care programs.

    There, fixed that for you.

  11. The CBO runs its numbers based on what Congress instructs it to assume as ancillary fiscal conditions. The Obamacare numbers were run using, among other bits of politically convenient fiction, the idea that Medicare doctor reimbursements will shortly be reduced by 25 percent. It would have been at least slightly more honest to ask CBO to run numbers assuming the NASA rovers make a massive gold strike on Mars. As Rand said, garbage in, garbage out.

  13. The CBO is the fairest fiscal arbiter available

    That is bullshit, Jim. Stop wasting our time asserting otherwise. Once again, since it doesn’t seem to be sinking in your thick skull, the CBO has to take as fact whatever fantasies Congress assigns it. The fact that even with this host of fantasies, the CBO still manages to deeply embarrass Congress, merely is another indicator of how pathetic and wretched this particular crop of congresspeople are.

  14. No one said it was. But its tax hikes — decried at the time as growth-killing — are a major reason we got to a surplus.

    I take it you’re too young to remember how Clinton spent weeks saying “We can balance the budget in 7 years” or “We can balance the budget in 9 years” following the Republican victory in the 1994 elections. His budget projections weren’t close to a balanced budget even after the 1993 tax hikes.

    There are two aspects to balancing any budget – revenues and expenses. Democrats never show any sense of responsibility at reducing expenses so they’re always seeking increased revenues. For their last several years in power, the Republicans also made this mistake passing pork-laden legislation like the highway bill and farm bill. There are finite limits on how much additional revenue government can raise simply by increasing tax rates that slow economic growth. If they really want to raise taxes, they should consider tax policies that are proven to stimulate the economy like tax rate reductions. They should also examine the regulatory burden on business to determine which regulations cause more harm than good. Instead, they perceive business as the enemy. Fools.

    Democrats were bad. Republicans proved they could be just as bad, then the Democrats tripled down to prove they were even worse.

  15. At 10:50 AM I wrote:

    Standing by for Rand’s ad-hominem rebuttal in 3, 2, 1…

    At 2:23 PM Rand obliged:

    It really is amazing that Jim wastes his time trolling here and insulting our intelligence.

    You’re getting slow, Rand.

  16. No, I don’t like that lie.

    So now you are saying that the CBO is lying — that they are saying things they know to be untrue? Do show the evidence that supports such a conclusion.

  17. For example, the CBO underestimated the cost of most recent health care programs.

    There, fixed that for you.

    Care to provide any evidence? Here’s mine:

    Gabel, a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, analyzed CBO’s forecasts of three major changes in the Medicare program relative to their ultimate outcomes. He found that in the early 1980s, CBO underestimated savings from reforms Congress made in the way Medicare paid hospitals by $11 billion. Under the new law, Medicare would pay hospitals a fixed amount per admission based on the patient’s primary medical condition, instead of covering costs incurred during a patient’s stay. This encouraged shorter stays, led to fewer diagnostic services, and reduced administrative costs. CBO predicted that by 1986 total spending would be $60 billion. Actual spending in 1986 was $49 billion.

    Gabel also found that savings from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which changed the way skilled nursing facilities and home health services were reimbursed under Medicare, turned out to be 50 percent greater in 1998 and 113 percent greater in 1999 than the budget office forecast. And, CBO predicted that drug prices would rise following the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which added prescription drug benefits to Medicare, estimating that spending on the drug benefit would be $206 billion. Actual spending was nearly 40 percent less than that, Gabel found.

  18. That is bullshit, Jim. Stop wasting our time asserting otherwise.

    If the CBO isn’t the fairest fiscal arbiter around, then who is, and what is their assessment of the ACA? Don’t just trash the CBO without proposing a better alternative.

    the CBO has to take as fact whatever fantasies Congress assigns it.

    You’ve been misled. If that was true, then the GOP could have asked it for a fantastic analysis of their health care plans, and gotten glowing scores. If that was true, the Dems would have had the CBO make assumptions that showed the ACA saving more than a mere $134 billion. They didn’t, because they can’t. The Dems earned their CBO score the hard way, by actually finding the money for their policies.

  19. So now you are saying that the CBO is lying

    No, I’m saying that Congress was lying when it gave CBO the inputs. And you continue to fool no one, other than those with a sub-room-temperature IQ.

    Don’t just trash the CBO

    No one is trashing the CBO. You’re just making yourself look like the lying fascist shill troll that you are. And if you don’t like that, no one makes you come here and look like that.

  20. Oh, and this:

    At 2:23 PM Rand obliged:

    You’re such a moron, you don’t even know what an ad hominem attack is.

    Hint for the clueless. It’s not an insult, even when it’s true. Take a course in logic. Why do you insist on making an ass of yourself on my web site?

  21. If the CBO isn’t the fairest fiscal arbiter around, then who is, and what is their assessment of the ACA? Don’t just trash the CBO without proposing a better alternative.

    I would look at the private world. For example, some of the think tanks like RAND, accounting firms, or a bond ratings organization.

  22. According to the Boston Globe article (click on my name), Massachusetts insurers are now seeing people explicitly following the exact strategy I have laid out here.

    In 2009 alone, 936 people signed up for coverage with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts for three months or less and ran up claims of more than $1,000 per month while in the plan. Their medical spending while insured was more than four times the average for consumers who buy coverage on their own and retain it in a normal fashion, according to data the state’s largest private insurer

    “These consumers come in and get their service, and then they leave because current regulations allow them to do it,’’ said Todd Bailey, vice president of underwriting at Fallon Community Health Plan, the state’s fourth-largest insurer.

    The problem is, it is less expensive for consumers — especially young and healthy people — to pay the monthly penalty of as much as $93 imposed under the state law for not having insurance, than to buy the coverage year-round. This is also the case under the federal health care overhaul legislation signed by the president, insurers say.

    Baker’s data showed that about 40 percent of the consumers who purchased insurance from Harvard Pilgrim on the open market kept the insurance fewer than five months, and they incurred, on average, $2,400 a month in medical expenses — about six times higher than the monthly spending of other consumers.

    Legislation is being considered to restrict enrollment to twice a year, and add waiting periods for pre-existing conditions.

  23. Legislation is being considered to restrict enrollment to twice a year, and add waiting periods for pre-existing conditions.

    So people will just wait for the waiting period and bleeding hearts will raise the spectre of people dying during the waiting period.

    Good luck at amending Obamacare now — no way will the Donkeys get a second bite at that apple.

  24. I would look at the private world. For example, some of the think tanks like RAND, accounting firms, or a bond ratings organization.

    So who is stopping you?

  25. You’re just making yourself look like the lying fascist shill troll that you are.

    You’re such a moron, you don’t even know what an ad hominem attack is.

    No one could hope to match the intellectual level of your discourse, Rand, so I don’t even try.

  26. I’m saying that Congress was lying when it gave CBO the inputs.

    Then why does ACA include the excise tax? It’s very unpopular, and if the Dems could game the CBO so easily, they didn’t need the excise tax to get a good score.

    Your theory doesn’t make any sense.

  27. No one could hope to match the intellectual level of your discourse, Rand, so I don’t even try.

    Hey, if the truth hurts, no one makes you come here to read it.

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