• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

CBO deals another blow to House health plan

RightinNYC

RightinNYC

Girthless
DP Veteran
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Messages
25,893
Reaction score
12,484
Location
New York, NY
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Slightly Conservative
CBO deals another blow to House health plan - Patrick O'Connor - POLITICO.com

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office dealt another blow to House Democrats on Friday night, saying their health care bill would increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over the next 10 years.

The projected shortfall means Democrats would need to find additional revenue or make deeper cuts to existing programs in order to meet their goal of paying for the $1 trillion bill.
Click to expand...

That's pretty bad, but it's nowhere near as disturbing as this next part:

But those projections don't account for a $245 billion reduction in the deficit this legislation would create, if Democrats can also approve new balanced budget rules that would permanently address an annual shortfall in Medicare payments to physicians.
Click to expand...

What are those rules, you say?

But the biggest change would come from the enactment of new accounting rules — something CBO still can't account for because those new rules haven't become law.

In the bill, Democrats provide $245 billion to eliminate an annual shortfall in payments to doctors under Medicare. Democrats resolved this annual headache, in large part, to win crucial support for the bill from the American Medical Association. That money currently counts against the overall costs of the bill, but Democrats have introduced legislation that would remove remove this obligation from federal deficit. However, CBO won't recognize that change until those new pay-as-you-go rules become law.
Click to expand...

Read that, and then read it again.

Right now, the bill will create a deficit of $239 billion dollars. However, the Democrats are trying to pass legislation that would change the accounting rules so as to exempt this particular $245 billion cost from the bill. Why would they do that? So that they can say this bill is revenue-neutral.

That's some of the most blatant budgetary manipulation I can think of. Keep that in mind when you see the articles next week proclaiming that the House bill will not add to the deficit at all.
 
RightinNYC said:
That's some of the most blatant budgetary manipulation I can think of. Keep that in mind when you see the articles next week proclaiming that the House bill will not add to the deficit at all.
Click to expand...

Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)

Total Public Debt Outstanding: 11,598,417,943,168.15

Until this figure stops increasing, everything Congress does adds to the deficit. That is and should be the only criterion for determining what is and is not "deficit spending."
 
RightinNYC said:
CBO deals another blow to House health plan - Patrick O'Connor - POLITICO.com

Right now, the bill will create a deficit of $239 billion dollars. However, the Democrats are trying to pass legislation that would change the accounting rules so as to exempt this particular $245 billion cost from the bill. Why would they do that? So that they can say this bill is revenue-neutral.

That's some of the most blatant budgetary manipulation I can think of. Keep that in mind when you see the articles next week proclaiming that the House bill will not add to the deficit at all.
Click to expand...

Who is surprised by this?

They can't play by the rules, so they change them.
Which party is the most corrupt, I've forgotten now.
 
OK, let's get some perspective on this. It will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the course of 10 years. That's $24 billion per year...which is slightly more than we spend on NASA and slightly less than we spend on the Department of Agriculture.

Pocket change.
 
Kandahar said:
OK, let's get some perspective on this. It will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the course of 10 years. That's $24 billion per year...which is slightly more than we spend on NASA and slightly less than we spend on the Department of Agriculture.

Pocket change.
Click to expand...

Yeah, cause as we all know, government entitlement plans always stay within budget. :roll::roll::roll:
 
Kandahar said:
OK, let's get some perspective on this. It will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the course of 10 years. That's $24 billion per year...which is slightly more than we spend on NASA and slightly less than we spend on the Department of Agriculture.

Pocket change.
Click to expand...
Let's get some more perspective on this.

Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)

Total Public Debt Outstanding: 11,598,417,943,168.15

Increasing the budget deficit by $239 billion means adding $239 Billion to the Federal Debt.

Increasing the budget deficit moves the Total Public Debt Outstanding from $11,598,417,943,168.15 to $11,837,417,943,168.15.

Increasing the budget deficit by $239 Billion means spending $239 Billion that we do not have.

In a time when Dear Leader tells Americans to make hard choices and not live beyond their means, shouldn't government do the same?
 
MrVicchio said:
Yeah, cause as we all know, government entitlement plans always stay within budget. :roll::roll::roll:
Click to expand...

OK, well let's assume that it's actually TWICE as much as they're estimating. That would make it $48 billion per year...about what we spend on the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Not bad for a complete overhaul of our health care system. Not bad at all.
 
celticlord said:
Increasing the budget deficit by $239 billion means adding $239 Billion to the Federal Debt.

Increasing the budget deficit moves the Total Public Debt Outstanding from $11,598,417,943,168.15 to $11,837,417,943,168.15.
Click to expand...

And what economic apocalypse do you imagine will result from having a debt of $11.84 trillion instead of $11.60 trillion?
 
Kandahar said:
And what economic apocalypse do you imagine will result from having a debt of $11.84 trillion instead of $11.60 trillion?
Click to expand...
Depends on whether a creditor can be found to loan the extra $239 Billion. If there is no creditor, then the US goes bankrupt.

That's the thing about bankruptcy--it's driven not by the first debts you incur, but the last.

Thus the way to avoid bankruptcy is to not only keep debts small, but also short lived.

Evasions and equivocations aside, that $239 Billion price tag is debt--and there are no guarantees that the US Treasury will be able to sell enough bonds to cover that debt.
 
Kandahar said:
OK, let's get some perspective on this. It will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the course of 10 years. That's $24 billion per year...which is slightly more than we spend on NASA and slightly less than we spend on the Department of Agriculture.

Pocket change.
Click to expand...

Yea I've heard this from a lot of quality posters like yourself.
The problem is I've heard it about 100 different programs and all those "pocket change" programs add up.

How many times can you use the excuse "it's only x% of our budget" before you think we have spent too much?
 
Kandahar said:
OK, let's get some perspective on this. It will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the course of 10 years. That's $24 billion per year...which is slightly more than we spend on NASA and slightly less than we spend on the Department of Agriculture.

Pocket change.
Click to expand...

That's the attitude that gives us continual deficits and keeps digging our country into debt.
 
Anything and everything that can be done should be done to derail over the top economy destroying plan before Obama and his blind followers force it through passage and we all live to regret it those who live through it. Obama is using fear tactics and propaganda to pressure the Nation further into his Socialist agenda. I have no clue what Obama's final goals are only what I see are a few of the steps he's taking to gey use to where ever that is. He has already forced through his Cap an Trade bill that I would bit no one in Congress has yet to read and never will because it's too long with hidden agendas tucked neatly deep inside. We will know the inner workings when they begin to haunt us. The same exact tactic is bein used in this Careless Health Plan the includes forces euthanasia and most likely eugenics hidden somewhere in it.
Both of these completely wacko anti American Socialist/reactionary and in the case of Cap and Trade HOAX driven plans they lead the Nation down the road to economic ruin and possibly a leftist Dictatorship if Obamas backing of the legally outed president of Honduras is any indication. I believe these things are all related and need to be stopped os at least slowed to allow reasonable time for exploration into the long term effects and possible hidden agenda behind B. Hussein Obama's rushing down the road to economic oblivion.
I fear this is only the beginning of his raign of terror on the Nation.

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else".
Sir Winston Churchill
 
I wonder if the CBO analysis is going to take into account the likelyhood that this bill will also end up bankrupting the insurance industry and the cost in jobs and unemployment benefits that the government will have to pay out on top of its own costs.

But I am sure its pocket change compared to the rest of our deficit, so **** it. Who cares, right?
 
So what? So what???? It will be ignored. Liberals have a mission from their god, its righteousness is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. It must be accomplished.
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
Yea I've heard this from a lot of quality posters like yourself.
The problem is I've heard it about 100 different programs and all those "pocket change" programs add up.

How many times can you use the excuse "it's only x% of our budget" before you think we have spent too much?
Click to expand...

Then we should worry about trimming the truly wasteful projects from the budget. This is essentially the most important project our government can undertake right now. If we can get something as important as universal health care for some pocket change, that is an extremely good deal.
 
Last edited:
WI Crippler said:
I wonder if the CBO analysis is going to take into account the likelyhood that this bill will also end up bankrupting the insurance industry and the cost in jobs and unemployment benefits that the government will have to pay out on top of its own costs.

But I am sure its pocket change compared to the rest of our deficit, so **** it. Who cares, right?
Click to expand...

If it bankrupts the insurance industry, then that means that people prefer the public plan. Aside from being an inherently good thing that the public plan is efficient enough to woo customers, it means that there would need to be more employees working on the public plan. So what makes you think that this will cost more jobs than it creates?
 
Last edited:
Kandahar said:
Then we should worry about trimming the truly wasteful projects from the budget. This is essentially the most important project our government can undertake right now. If we can get something as important as universal health care for some pocket change, that is an extremely good deal.
Click to expand...
If we could do that, you would have a point. Unfortunately for your argument, we cannot do that, and indeed, with the proposals before Congress, we will not do that. Thus your argument is defeated by fiscal reality, defined as the $239 Billion of government IOUs required to fund these proposals.

$239 Billion in DEBT is not "pocket change." "Pocket change" requires that it be money we have to spend. Debt by definition is money we do not have.

This healthcare boondoggle you celebrate so smarmily is not paid for with change from anyone's pockets. This healthcare boondoggle is not paid for at all. You don't pay for something when you write an IOU, but when you pay off the IOU.
 
celticlord said:
If we could do that, you would have a point. Unfortunately for your argument, we cannot do that, and indeed, with the proposals before Congress, we will not do that. Thus your argument is defeated by fiscal reality, defined as the $239 Billion of government IOUs required to fund these proposals.
Click to expand...

Why don't you think we can find $24 billion of waste in the annual budget? I can find more than that in the Department of Defense alone...and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Anyway, why don't you devote your energy to opposing those wasteful programs instead of conceding they can't be stopped and instead opposing a truly useful program? That's like concluding that you can't afford your house payment because you're spending too much on beer.

celticlord said:
$239 Billion in DEBT is not "pocket change." "Pocket change" requires that it be money we have to spend. Debt by definition is money we do not have.

This healthcare boondoggle you celebrate so smarmily is not paid for with change from anyone's pockets. This healthcare boondoggle is not paid for at all. You don't pay for something when you write an IOU, but when you pay off the IOU.
Click to expand...

$24 billion per year is 0.16% of our GDP. We'll survive. For something as important as health care, that is an incredibly good deal.
 
Last edited:
Kandahar said:
If it bankrupts the insurance industry, then that means that people are preferring the public plan. Aside from being an inherently good thing that the public plan is efficient enough to woo customers, it means that there would need to be more employees working on the public plan. So what makes you think that this will cost more jobs than it creates?
Click to expand...

One of the things noted in an article RightinNYC quoted, mentioned that "The positive thing about "The Exchange" is that it would eliminate one of the problems, which was health insurance comapnies raising premium rates for consumers who came down with illness."
From what was explained to me, by RightinNYC, is that private insurers have to be a part of this "exchange" which is supposed to be the private competition for the public plan. So it looks like the "Exchange" is code for federal regulation.
If you make it illegal for insurance companies to raise rates, for taking on more risk, you are essentially making insurance illegal. Insurance is the transfer of risk, and if they are not allowed to charge an appropriate amount of money for the risk they are assuming, then they will go bankrupt. Thats not the government competing and winning because its better and more efficient, thats the government winning by bankrupting the private sector by making it illegal for the industry to operate in a fiscally responsible manner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom