Thursday, December 3, 2009

Baucus Admits Obamacare Costs $2.5 Trillion

Last month, I quoted an article from the The Foundry [the Heritage blog], stating that the House health Care bill, over a period of 10 years - from years 2114 to 2023 - will cost $2.6 trillion, despite misleading claims made by the CBO:
The [House health care] bill is front loaded with taxes, and back-loaded with spending in the first ten years. Since most of the spending in the House bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, the 10-year cost estimates based on the preliminary CBO score (for years 2010 through 2019) only account for six years of new spending under the plan. Once it is implemented (over a full 10-year window from years 2014 to 2023), the giant House health bill carries a price tag of $2.4 trillion, or as much as $2.6 trillion with the “doc fix.”
Similar assessments have also been made with regards to the cost of the Senate health care bill.

And, today, the Heritage blog [The Foundry], posted a video of Sen. Max Baucus - a key figure in crafting the health care bill - admitting on the Senate floor that Obamacare, even without the “doc fix,"would cost $2.5 trillion:

BAUCUS: "Bare with me and take the doc fix and put that off the table, just for a second, we can address that later... Health care reform...[using a 10 year number], whether you start in 2110 or you start in 2114 - whenever you're gonna start - either it's a trillion dollars or $2.5 trillion, depending upon when you start ...."

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