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Congressional Budget Office Consistently Wrong on Health Care Estimates

BWG said:
Boehner calls the health care act a "job-killing health care law"

Where does the cry-on-cue Boehner get his information that this is a "job-killing health care law"? Could it be from the National Federation of Independent Business? The same National Federation of Independent Business that is suing to have the legislation declared unconstitutional. Wow, how non-biased they must be. But we trust them over the non-partisan CBO, because we like what they say.

Actually some of it's from the CBO themselves, though surprisingly they - the Republicans - twisted it just a bit. The Republican report said that the CBO said that law would result in job losses. However, what the CBO actually said was the law will "reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount - the Republicans left the 'small amount' out of their report." Further the CBO said that the labor reduction wouldn't be from employers cutting jobs, but from people reducing their own workload because medical insurance would be easier to acquire. In other words they would have the freedom to not work full time at a job they didn't want just to get medical insurance


CBO: Health care repeal would increase deficit
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Have you ever run or owned a business? what is the biggest operating expense in that business? how do you hire people not knowing what the cost of those employees is going to be?

Now with regard to the CBO, any idea what the accuracy rate is for the CBO on 10 projections? Have you looked at the assumptions that the CBO was given by the Congress? How many of those assumptions are accurate? If those assumptions aren't accurate then how about the end projections?

CBO isn't the problem, partisanship on both sides is.
 
killing obamacare is gonna cost THIRTY MILLION americans their health care AND add to the deficit

ie, adding 30 mil to m&m's rolls SAVES money

please continue, mr elmendorf
 
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BWG said:
Boehner calls the health care act a "job-killing health care law"

Where does the cry-on-cue Boehner get his information that this is a "job-killing health care law"? Could it be from the National Federation of Independent Business? The same National Federation of Independent Business that is suing to have the legislation declared unconstitutional. Wow, how non-biased they must be. But we trust them over the non-partisan CBO, because we like what they say.

Actually some of it's from the CBO themselves, though surprisingly they - the Republicans - twisted it just a bit. The Republican report said that the CBO said that law would result in job losses. However, what the CBO actually said was the law will "reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount - the Republicans left the 'small amount' out of their report." Further the CBO said that the labor reduction wouldn't be from employers cutting jobs, but from people reducing their own workload because medical insurance would be easier to acquire. In other words they would have the freedom to not work full time at a job they didn't want just to get medical insurance


CBO: Health care repeal would increase deficit
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Obamacare Conclude Overhaul Will Reduce Labor Force by Almost 800,000 Jobs « Government RICO
Drs. Coburn and Barrasso releases new health care report, and the consequences of “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” worse than anticipated. One section reports on the impact this new law has on jobs.Full report available here.

Before the health care legislation became law, proponents of the overhaul claimed that health reform would create jobs. At the White House health care summit in February, the Speaker of the House of Representatives asserted the federal health care overhaul would create “400,000 jobs almost immediately,” both in the health care industry and “in the entrepreneurial world as well.”[1] However, recent independent reviews have contradicted such rosy scenarios and found the legislation will wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs.[2]
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The CBO’s analysis did not even take into account the overhaul’s job impact on specific industries. Unfortunately, the lost jobs count can be expected to climb even higher because of a simple provision tucked into the legislation. Section 6001 of the health overhaul prohibits hospitals owned by physicians from expanding and denied Medicare reimbursements to any physician-owned hospitals not certified by Medicare by the end of the year.

According to a Washington Times report, “the Physician Hospitals of America (PHA) identified 39 projects under development whose owners had canceled outright, knowing they could not win Medicare certification by the end-of-year deadline, plus another 45 that will be hard-pressed to meet Medicare certification criteria in time.”[9] Sadly, according to PHA conversations with its member hospitals, the canceled projects could have created “roughly 25,000 jobs.”[10] As the Times article notes, the “job-killing provisions” of the overhaul are “particularly ironic given that physician-owned facilities tend to be economically efficient and deliver superior medical outcomes.”[11]
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800,000 jobs lost is considered a 'small amount' by the CBO. Morons.
 
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Conservative said:
The Republicans are standing on history and actual results of CBO accuracy which you and other continue to ignore. The CBO reports its own performance over a 10 year history as being very poor. You even acknowledged that it is unlikely that the cuts and tax increase will happen so what does that do to the estimates? It isn't the CBO fault because they can only use the assumptions given them. If the assumptions are wrong then the projections are wrong. History shows that the CBO has never been right on their 10 projections and that is the point. Using the 230 billion as fact is nothing more than partisan rhetoric that deceives the American people.
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So what is your solution, lets assume I completely agree and the CBO is junk most of the time? The Reps are still offering nothing better. The 230 Billion is not a partisan figure, the CBO is non-partisan, which is why the Republicans were so keen to use it when they wanted to talk about how much the Stimulus package would cost. The 230 may have come from more partisan numbers, and partisan directions from Congress, because the CBO is forced to follow the directions of Congress. So if Congress orders them to conduct a study based on a number of assumptions, the CBO does it. Its Congress that's partisan not the CBO.

But again, and again and again and again. You have to offer something better or you aren't even playing the game.
 
Wiseone said:
So what is your solution, lets assume I completely agree and the CBO is junk most of the time? The Reps are still offering nothing better. The 230 Billion is not a partisan figure, the CBO is non-partisan, which is why the Republicans were so keen to use it when they wanted to talk about how much the Stimulus package would cost. The 230 may have come from more partisan numbers, and partisan directions from Congress, because the CBO is forced to follow the directions of Congress. So if Congress orders them to conduct a study based on a number of assumptions, the CBO does it. Its Congress that's partisan not the CBO.

But again, and again and again and again. You have to offer something better or you aren't even playing the game.
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Look, the CBO was required to give a projection on costs and did so based upon the assumptions given them by Congress. The CBO has NEVER been accurate on any projections 10 years out and in fact are seldom accurate two years or more due to human behavior and activity which cannot be predicted. To buy the CBO projections would be a mistake especially this far out. Paul Ryan put out a GOP healthcare plan. Research it.

I have no problem with healthcare reform but it has to be market based not govt. based. It will not work any other way. I believe healthcare is a personal responsibility so let the market handle the issue. How did we ever survive without govt. involvement? At worst this is a state and local issue as ER costs are funded by the citizens of an individual state, not the Federal taxpayer. The real problems are ER usage and illegal aliens which has to be solved. Universal Healthcare doesn't solve the ER issue at all as evidenced by the MA program.
 
Conservative said:
Look, the CBO was required to give a projection on costs and did so based upon the assumptions given them by Congress. The CBO has NEVER been accurate on any projections 10 years out and in fact are seldom accurate two years or more due to human behavior and activity which cannot be predicted. To buy the CBO projections would be a mistake especially this far out. Paul Ryan put out a GOP healthcare plan. Research it.

I have no problem with healthcare reform but it has to be market based not govt. based. It will not work any other way. I believe healthcare is a personal responsibility so let the market handle the issue. How did we ever survive without govt. involvement? At worst this is a state and local issue as ER costs are funded by the citizens of an individual state, not the Federal taxpayer. The real problems are ER usage and illegal aliens which has to be solved. Universal Healthcare doesn't solve the ER issue at all as evidenced by the MA program.
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I agree that this CBO study has its flaws due to the fault of Congress, but its still better to go on than nothing.
 
Wiseone said:
I agree that this CBO study has its flaws due to the fault of Congress, but its still better to go on than nothing.
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No, nothing wrong with CBO making a projection but to accept that projection at face value makes one lose credibility if those projections are passed off as fact. Anyone that believes that you can add 40+ million people to the insurance roles at lower expenses is smoking something funny.
 
It's not that the CBO is intrinsically biased or dishonest, the problem with the CBO is in the way it operates. If the CBO will produce a report for any member of Congress based on whatever assumptions that member wishes them to rely on, then their results are only as unbiased or honest as that member.

In this particular case, the CBO is calculating these figures under the assumption that Congress will allow the scheduled cuts to Medicare reimbursements to take effect. Given that Congress has always averted these cuts with temporary "doc fixes" and shows no inclination to do anything else, anyone with any awareness of how politics works recognizes that these calculations are built on an incredibly flawed foundation.

IMO, if anyone still wants to argue that these numbers are anything other than carefully crafted gimmicks, they're either unaware of these facts or being deliberately disingenuous.
 
Conservative said:
The Republicans are standing on history and actual results of CBO accuracy which you and other continue to ignore. The CBO reports its own performance over a 10 year history as being very poor. You even acknowledged that it is unlikely that the cuts and tax increase will happen so what does that do to the estimates? It isn't the CBO fault because they can only use the assumptions given them. If the assumptions are wrong then the projections are wrong. History shows that the CBO has never been right on their 10 projections and that is the point. Using the 230 billion as fact is nothing more than partisan rhetoric that deceives the American people.
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Oh Bull****, the GOP loves the CBO when they agree with them and hates them when they don't. Anyone who runs a large business depends upon projections. Sometimes they are correct and sometimes they are wrong.
 
pbrauer said:
Oh Bull****, the GOP loves the CBO when they agree with them and hates them when they don't. Anyone who runs a large business depends upon projections. Sometimes they are correct and sometimes they are wrong.
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Businesses rely on projections that are designed to be as accurate as possible. If a company reported projections based on business assumptions that it knew or had reason to believe were faulty, corporate officials would go to jail.

Again, there is a very significant difference between the CBO's forecasting process and that of a normal analysis that you are missing.
 
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pbrauer said:
Oh Bull****, the GOP loves the CBO when they agree with them and hates them when they don't. Anyone who runs a large business depends upon projections. Sometimes they are correct and sometimes they are wrong.
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Not sure if you ever worked in a big corporation. But the people who put projections together at those companies are also tasked with poking at the assumptions. If all somwone is doing is adding up what someone else says will happen you only need low paid clerks. My sense is that the people at CBO are paid as true professionals and thus should be able to at the very least say this is the number but I think there is a problem with X or Y.
 
Government =/= Business.

CBO numbers serve as the basis for debate. The latest budget revelations prove Republicans don't care about the debt.
 
Chappy said:
Government =/= Business.
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And nobody said otherwise, so why are you trying to change the subject?

CBO numbers serve as the basis for debate. The latest budget revelations prove Republicans don't care about the debt.
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It's like you didn't even read the words in my post.

HYPO TIME!!!!

Let's say that tomorrow, Boehner asks the CBO to conduct an analysis of the health care bill that assumes that Congress would continually pass doctor fixes, that prescription drug costs would skyrocket, and that a dozen other worst-case scenarios came to pass. Lets say that that CBO report concluded that repealing the health care bill would save $1T

Now, the moment of truth: Would you say that Democratic criticism of that report would be unfounded? Would you said that Democratic opposition to repeal proved that they didn't care about the debt? Or would you be vigorously making the exact points that I'm making and that you're pretending not to understand in this thread?
 
RightinNYC said:
Businesses rely on projections that are designed to be as accurate as possible. If a company reported projections based on business assumptions that it knew or had reason to believe were faulty, corporate officials would go to jail.

Again, there is a very significant difference between the CBO's forecasting process and that of a normal analysis that you are missing.
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Well, the CBO caters to the needs of politicians...how accurate can you expect it to be?

At the same time, I agree with Wiseone, its all we have, and should be a best case scenario for us. Ideally, the CBO could revise their estimates to something more realistic, and also provide a worst case scenario as well, so we have a range of options to choose from. I don't know why the CBO doesn't automatically do that....
 
repeter said:
Well, the CBO caters to the needs of politicians...how accurate can you expect it to be?
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That's my point. Yet despite that, many in the media and popular culture continue to trot out the old saw about how CBO reports are by their very nature unbiased and unimpeachable.

At the same time, I agree with Wiseone, its all we have, and should be a best case scenario for us.
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How exactly does a wildly implausible and inaccurate projection help us at all?

Ideally, the CBO could revise their estimates to something more realistic, and also provide a worst case scenario as well, so we have a range of options to choose from. I don't know why the CBO doesn't automatically do that....
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Because that's not the CBO's mission. The plan you're describing sounds like an improvement, but then it wouldn't be the CBO...
 
Earth to RightinNYC, CBO says repeal of health reform bill will add $230 billion to the national debt over the next decade.¹

Why don't we start with reality?
 
Chappy said:
Earth to RightinNYC, CBO says repeal of health reform bill will add $230 billion to the national debt over the next decade.¹

Why don't we start with reality?
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Please tell me you're just messing with me and that you don't actually think that's a response to what I said.

I addressed this not 10 posts ago, pointing out the obvious problems with such simplistic reasoning. Simply repeating "but the CBO said X, so that's reality" is obtuse and quite frankly not up to your standards.
 
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RightinNYC said:
That's my point. Yet despite that, many in the media and popular culture continue to trot out the old saw about how CBO reports are by their very nature unbiased and unimpeachable.
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Yeah....

RightinNYC said:
How exactly does a wildly implausible and inaccurate projection help us at all?
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I don't know exactly how they come up with their estimates, but someone (I believe it was you) who explained that they held certain variables steady due to a politician's request. Given that a Democrat asked for an estimate, I'm sure they wanted the absolute best scenario for the health care bill. So, as a starting point, we'd consider the positive $143 Billion net as a best case scenario. Without a middle and worst case scenario, though, its not highly useful, I admit.

RightinNYC said:
Because that's not the CBO's mission. The plan you're describing sounds like an improvement, but then it wouldn't be the CBO...
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I don't know a whole lot about their mission, but shouldn't it analyze the affect bills have on our budget? Of course, they would only review bills that they are requested to review, but when they do it, they should do it absolutely independently. From what I do know, they are meant to be apolitical, independent, and it damn well should be holy writ.
 
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repeter said:
I don't know a whole lot about their mission, but shouldn't it analyze the affect bills have on our budget? Of course, they would only review bills that they are requested to review, but when they do it, they should do it absolutely independently. From what I do know, they are meant to be apolitical, independent, and it damn well should be holy writ.
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See, I think that there is a place for an agency that comes up with custom projections based on whatever particular assumptions that a politician wants to try out - that's one of the best ways to get a rough idea of the impact of various complex proposals. However, I think that the CBO should do more to make it exceedingly clear that their projections based on those assumptions are just that, rather than the gospel truth. I agree with your idea that the CBO should also be required to include a set of more optimistic and pessimistic projections.
 
RightinNYC said:
See, I think that there is a place for an agency that comes up with custom projections based on whatever particular assumptions that a politician wants to try out - that's one of the best ways to get a rough idea of the impact of various complex proposals. However, I think that the CBO should do more to make it exceedingly clear that their projections based on those assumptions are just that, rather than the gospel truth. I agree with your idea that the CBO should also be required to include a set of more optimistic and pessimistic projections.
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Why isn't the CBO already like that though? The only thing making government so inefficient are politicians, it works fine without them.
 
repeter said:
Why isn't the CBO already like that though? The only thing making government so inefficient are politicians, it works fine without them.
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It doesn't work like because then the congress critters wouldn't have PR stunts.
 
MrVicchio said:
It doesn't work like because then the congress critters wouldn't have PR stunts.
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F**k politics, these people are supposed to do what's best for us, not vote along party lines, and use government agencies to get re-elected. I suppose a great way to start reform would be to introduce term limits so eventually they stop working primarily to get re-elected...but I digress.
 
The issue is do we discount what CBO says because we think Congress will change the outcome before the current law is fully executed? Example, will Congress repeal the Medicare cuts specified in the health care reform bill?

After all, much of the savings in that bill were based on those cuts. Reality is that the CBO zeroed out significant savings in the bill as unproven. Will doctors stop ordering unnecessary tests to boost their compensation? Will hospitals stop cost shifting in order to cover uninsured losses? Will people be healthier because they have regular health checkups instead of waiting until medical emergencies?

Most experts agree that near universal health care insurance will change much that's wrong with our current system. Estimates are treacherous. One thing remains as the foundation: CBO numbers.

Republicans are telling us that they don't count. In so many ways, at this point, they are the only things that count.
 
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Chappy said:
The issue is do we discount what CBO says because we think Congress will change the outcome before the current law is fully executed? Example, will Congress repeal the Medicare cuts specified in the health care reform bill?
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Yes, they will. I don't know of anyone who really disputes this.

Most experts agree that near universal health care insurance will change much that's wrong with our current system. Estimates are treacherous. One thing remains as the foundation: CBO numbers.

Republicans are telling us that they don't count. In so many ways, at this point, they are the only things that count.
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You know, I was kind of hoping you'd say that.

CBO says health bill increases deficits under Rep. Ryan's assumptions - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

CBO says health bill increases deficits under Rep. Ryan's assumptions

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the healthcare bill would add billions to the country's debt if lawmakers ignore the bill's cost constraints, as Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) expects them to do.

Under the scenario painted by Ryan, CBO said the healthcare bill's $138 billion in savings over 10 years would disappear because the government would: extend the current Medicare doctor payment rate instead of allowing it to expire; allow health insurance subsidies to grow at a sustained rate; and fail to implement a tax on high-cost health plans and an independent Medicare advisory board, two measures aimed at constraining federal health costs.

...

The Medicare physician payment rate extension, which costs $208 billion over 10 years, would be enough by itself to wipe out the deficit reduction.

The CBO said that if Ryan's other assumptions become reality, the deficit would increase by $260 billion over 10 years and likely by a greater amount in the bill's second decade -- a level equal to 0.25 percent of gross domestic product.
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When the CBO released that analysis, were you arguing that that was the only thing that counted? Were you defending CBO figures as the "foundation" to base our debate on?

If this article doesn't make it clear how foolish it is to rely on CBO conclusions without regard for the assumptions that the CBO is asked to use, I don't know what will.
 
RightinNYC said:
… You know, I was kind of hoping you'd say that.

CBO says health bill increases deficits under Rep. Ryan's assumptions - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room



When the CBO released that analysis, were you arguing that that was the only thing that counted? Were you defending CBO figures as the "foundation" to base our debate on?

If this article doesn't make it clear how foolish it is to rely on CBO conclusions without regard for the assumptions that the CBO is asked to use, I don't know what will.
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But, of course, those numbers apply when Republicans offer the repeal of those health care bill cost constraints. Different debate. Not when they offer a total repeal as they are now. That's the issue on the floor this week and CBO says the cost is $230 Billion over the next decade.
 
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