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Budget Office Lowers Its Estimate on Federal Spending for Health Care

Threegoofs

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WASHINGTON — The growth of federal spending on health care will continue to decline as a proportion of the overall economy in the coming decades, in part because of cost controls mandated by President Obama’s health care law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The budget office said in its annual 25-year forecast that federal spending on major health care programs would amount to 8 percent of gross domestic product by 2039, one-tenth of a percentage point lower than its previous projection.

With the latest revision, the budget office has now reduced its 10-year estimate for spending by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs by $1.23 trillion starting in 2010, the year the health care law took effect. By 2039, the savings would amount to $250 billion a year today, or about 1.5 percent of the economy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/b...-of-federal-spending-on-health-care.html?_r=0

This is the biggest news that no one is talking about. I guess scary stories are better for pageviews and eyeballs.

This is a massive shift. In fact, its exactly what Obama discussed when he talked about 'bending the cost curve' of Medicare. Exactly.

Heres a nice graph showing the budget impact.

15_cbo_budget_outlook_fig1-1.png


Thats total federal government spending... a massively lower projection.
 
I guess since this news hasn't been on TV (and definitely hasnt been on Fox), all the Obama and ACA haters are declining to comment.

Then again, maybe its not really 'news', since these stories were being reported over a year ago (to the same chorus of crickets).

New Data Suggests Obamacare Is Actually Bending The Healthcare Cost Curve - Forbes

Lets see, in 2000 it was 3% and now it's 5% and then I notice the yellow line keeps going up as a % of GDP. How is this saving anything? Healthcare as a % of GDP keeps rising, how is this bending the cure down? I don't see anything going down only up. If your clapping because the chart shows a separation between the yellow and blue line does not excite me, our national debt keeps going up not down, how is that a good thing?
 
Wait, so Obamacare is a spending CUT?
 
Lets see, in 2000 it was 3% and now it's 5% and then I notice the yellow line keeps going up as a % of GDP. How is this saving anything? Healthcare as a % of GDP keeps rising, how is this bending the cure down? I don't see anything going down only up. If your clapping because the chart shows a separation between the yellow and blue line does not excite me, our national debt keeps going up not down, how is that a good thing?

Ah. Your standard for US success is economic collapse.

Maybe you should read some basic economics before you actually comment.
 
Ah. Your standard for US success is economic collapse.

You call healthcare taking a bigger share of our GDP a success. Not in my book. Only a liberal has that logic.

Further I recall Obama promising everyone we would see a $2,500 reduction a year in their healthcare cost . Never happened. And Obamacare was supposed to bend the curve down, all I saw on your chart are lines going up.

Last why don't you try answering once, rather than throwing out your BS
 
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You call healthcare taking a bigger share of our GDP a success. Not in my book. Only a liberal has that logic.

Further I recall Obama promising everyone we would see a $2,500 reduction a year in their healthcare cost . Never happened. And Obamacare was supposed to bend the curve down, all I saw on your chart are lines going up.

Last why don't you try answering once, rather than throwing out your BS

You don't need a lesson on economics.

You need a simple review on reading graphs!

It's a LOWER share of GDP!
 
You don't need a lesson on economics.

You need a simple review on reading graphs!

It's a LOWER share of GDP!

Maybe the chart should be turned upside down

From your site you posted

Despite the improvement, federal health care spending is still projected to grow faster than any other budget category as baby boomers retire and begin drawing from Medicare. Health care is on track to become the government’s biggest expense by around 2030.


Over all, the budget office still sees federal budget deficits and the government’s outstanding debt growing at rates it calls unsustainable. Deficits are projected to remain at their current level of about 3 percent of G.D.P., or about $500 billion — a level that economists consider maintainable in a growing economy — through 2018 before rising to 4 percent and higher after that.
 
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Maybe the chart should be turned upside down

From your site you posted

Despite the improvement, federal health care spending is still projected to grow faster than any other budget category as baby boomers retire and begin drawing from Medicare. Health care is on track to become the government’s biggest expense by around 2030.


Over all, the budget office still sees federal budget deficits and the government’s outstanding debt growing at rates it calls unsustainable. Deficits are projected to remain at their current level of about 3 percent of G.D.P., or about $500 billion — a level that economists consider maintainable in a growing economy — through 2018 before rising to 4 percent and higher after that.

Ooooh.

You want the nation to get older and put millions more on Medicare and for it to be LESS expensive than it is now.

Magical thinking. That's why you believe people like Palin.
 
Beware all government prognostications that predict good times are just around the corner.

Also, I wonder how much of those savings are because many states didn't expand medicaid?
 
WASHINGTON — The growth of federal spending on health care will continue to decline as a proportion of the overall economy in the coming decades, in part because of cost controls mandated by President Obama’s health care law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The budget office said in its annual 25-year forecast that federal spending on major health care programs would amount to 8 percent of gross domestic product by 2039, one-tenth of a percentage point lower than its previous projection.

With the latest revision, the budget office has now reduced its 10-year estimate for spending by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs by $1.23 trillion starting in 2010, the year the health care law took effect. By 2039, the savings would amount to $250 billion a year today, or about 1.5 percent of the economy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/b...-of-federal-spending-on-health-care.html?_r=0

This is the biggest news that no one is talking about. I guess scary stories are better for pageviews and eyeballs.

This is a massive shift. In fact, its exactly what Obama discussed when he talked about 'bending the cost curve' of Medicare. Exactly.

Heres a nice graph showing the budget impact.

15_cbo_budget_outlook_fig1-1.png


Thats total federal government spending... a massively lower projection.

This is good news.
 
Let's see the logic here... A graph that shows only a revision of the path from a little less than 10% of rise in costs to GDP to a ~7.5% of a rise in costs to GDP , which still shows a path toward unsustainable spending (as stated in the OP's own article), potential fiscal collapse and economic destruction... is a good thing.

Amazing logic.
 
Let's see the logic here... A graph that shows only a revision of the path from a little less than 10% of rise in costs to GDP to a ~7.5% of a rise in costs to GDP , which still shows a path toward unsustainable spending (as stated in the OP's own article), potential fiscal collapse and economic destruction... is a good thing.

Amazing logic.

Apparently, in your world everyone is getting younger and Medicare rolls aren't known to be expanding by basic demographic math.

I bet you were screaming a few years ago about Obamas draconian Medicare cuts, right?
 
Apparently, in your world everyone is getting younger and Medicare rolls aren't known to be expanding by basic demographic math.

I bet you were screaming a few years ago about Obamas draconian Medicare cuts, right?

How does that address what I said?
 
Let's see the logic here... A graph that shows only a revision of the path from a little less than 10% of rise in costs to GDP to a ~7.5% of a rise in costs to GDP , which still shows a path toward unsustainable spending (as stated in the OP's own article), potential fiscal collapse and economic destruction... is a good thing.

Amazing logic.

We have an aging population. We have been expecting medical cost and governments share of medical cost to rise vis-a-vis GDP all along. The good news is that we have made some headway in slowing down the growth in spending. We aren't going to make it go away unless we really do have death panels and death squads rounding up everyone over 75.

Beware all government prognostications that predict good times are just around the corner.

Also, I wonder how much of those savings are because many states didn't expand medicaid?

We would likely have greater savings had the states expanded medicaid, which would have opened up preventative medicine to more people today easing the burden of catastrophic care tomorrow.
 
We have an aging population. We have been expecting medical cost and governments share of medical cost to rise vis-a-vis GDP all along. The good news is that we have made some headway in slowing down the growth in spending. We aren't going to make it go away unless we really do have death panels and death squads rounding up everyone over 75.

Hence the need for means testing for Medicare, just as a start. But, I know that that would be against the Progressive plan of full redistribution... oh, wait... Why is it again that the Democrats and Progressives in particular are against means testing?
 
Maybe with a little background on the issue, you would understand.

I think upside guys post #16 summarized it nicely.

Maybe to achieve what you assume this means, you would be championing cost cuts and reform of the system? Or are you just happy as a pig in slop that the total collapse of the system is going to be just slightly slower?
 
Maybe to achieve what you assume this means, you would be championing cost cuts and reform of the system? Or are you just happy as a pig in slop that the total collapse of the system is going to be just slightly slower?

Cost cuts? Reform of the system?

That was called the ACA.
 
Cost cuts? Reform of the system?

That was called the ACA.

Really? How's that working out? Your own chart and accompanying article shows that the cost is unsustainable? The PPACA has shifted costs, not reduced them. In fact, the overall true costs have gone up to the average citizen through increased co-pays, premium increases for individual policies, increased cost shares for employees by their employers, and other out of pocket costs. So much for cost cuts and reform.

The facts, even in your own OP, don't fit the rhetoric you guys are trying to paint. It should be embarrassing for you, but...
 
Ooooh.

You want the nation to get older and put millions more on Medicare and for it to be LESS expensive than it is now.

Magical thinking. That's why you believe people like Palin.

You just can't take being wrong, so you continually come up with your racial and BS remarks.

I'm just pointing out from your own site, that now you want to make fun of, healthcare cost are going up not down. Yet only a liberal would believe otherwise.
 
Really? How's that working out? Your own chart and accompanying article shows that the cost is unsustainable? The PPACA has shifted costs, not reduced them. In fact, the overall true costs have gone up to the average citizen through increased co-pays, premium increases for individual policies, increased cost shares for employees by their employers, and other out of pocket costs. So much for cost cuts and reform.

The facts, even in your own OP, don't fit the rhetoric you guys are trying to paint. It should be embarrassing for you, but...

One other item that liberals want to ignore is because of Obamacare taxes and penalties (more tax) are going up. This of course is never figured in the cost of healthcare, yet it's money out of the peoples pocket and into governments.

The real problem is the liberals give the CBO a certain criteria to use so that it shows the results it wants. However threegoofs own posted article said cost are going up. I would think he would have read his own article as it goes completely against what he was boasting.
 
One other item that liberals want to ignore is because of Obamacare taxes and penalties (more tax) are going up. This of course is never figured in the cost of healthcare, yet it's money out of the peoples pocket and into governments.

The real problem is the liberals give the CBO a certain criteria to use so that it shows the results it wants. However threegoofs own posted article said cost are going up. I would think he would have read his own article as it goes completely against what he was boasting.

Pictures and charts... pictures and charts. Text and facts are irrelevant as long as there are pictures and charts.
 
Really? How's that working out? Your own chart and accompanying article shows that the cost is unsustainable? The PPACA has shifted costs, not reduced them. In fact, the overall true costs have gone up to the average citizen through increased co-pays, premium increases for individual policies, increased cost shares for employees by their employers, and other out of pocket costs. So much for cost cuts and reform.

The facts, even in your own OP, don't fit the rhetoric you guys are trying to paint. It should be embarrassing for you, but...

Shifted costs? How so? People have NOT seen much of a rise in premiums, or any of the other things you allege. It's actually been pretty reasonable inflation overall. So the control of overall healthcare costs has been rising much slower than historically, and I'm guessing we can probably credit the ACA for some of that, although time will tell.

The cost being unsustainable is a subjective observation. I think it looks like it is a heck of a lot more sustainable than it did in 2007!
 
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