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Originally posted by: DonDiego
DonDiego suggests a reading of a thoughtful analysis of the Obamacare legislation from 2010: The Cato Institute. There's pr'bly newer, more thorough analyses available, but this is a good start.
The piece pretty well describes how earlier legislation costs have grown and continues to grow, . . . essentially how Congress often manages to avoid "projected" cost savings anticipated in the original legislation [as scored by the CBO] when those who would be affected adversely lobby for retaining the costs instead.
e.g. "In 1997, Congress promised annual cuts in [Medicare] physician payments, but has cancelled those cuts every year since." That's how the CBO underscored the "then future" Medicare payments.
And there's sorta bookkeeping "errors" too. F'rinstance: " . . . Democrats hid another $1.5 trillion [of costs] by preventing the CBO from scoring the legislation’s hidden taxes. At present, when Congress takes money from workers and gives it to private insurers, the CBO counts that as a tax. The Obama plan’s “individual mandate” would force workers to give money directly to private insurers, which the president’s economic advisers admit is also a tax. If history is any guide, those hidden taxes would cost roughly $1.5 trillion – but you won’t find any such estimate in the CBO’s score." This could be the $1.6-trillion to which hoops2 refers.
Right now there is growing concern that healthy young citizens will opt to not purchase insurance, . . . because it's the wise financial thing to do. They'd be better off just paying the fine. [Actually DonDiego isn't sure how the fines will be collected anyway, especially if these young folks don't earn enough to file income tax; but that's another issue, . . . one of many.] This "tax", according to the Supreme Court, won't be sufficient to support the decrepit old folks depending on young folks insurance premiums to subsidize their care. [Real insurance employs actuarial tables and insurance markets to determine how things get paid; if the insurers miscalculate they can lose money.] DonDiego opines the money to provide old folks medical care will have to come from either an additional tax or more borrowing.
In any case DonDiego does not know if the hundreds-of-millions-of dollars about to be spent on "advertising" to young folks that they should buy Obamacare insurance was included in the CBO estimate either. [Planned Parenthood is getting the first big contract to provide "navigators" to assist citizens in making sense of Obamacare, . . . and that's another issue too.]
In just a few minutes DonDiego came up with several issues which may raise the cost. DonDiego pr'bly thinks it more likely than Chilcoot, . . . and that's why there are elections.
I think its interesting how people change their definition of the word "tax" as it suits their cause. Republicans specifically said the "individual mandate" was not a tax in their challenge to the Supreme Court. But if people want to classify insurance payments to private companies as a "tax" it honestly doesn't hurt my feelings. That word isn't as toxic to me as some.
But if Don Diego likes to call private payments to insurance companies "hidden taxes" then his taxes work both ways. There are also hidden savings as a result of the same exact requirment....all the nanny state costs of paying for the uninsured and the resulting increases in everyone's health insurance premiums disappear with the mandate. In addition, the requirement that insurers lock their profit margins at 20% is a savings to "taxpayers"...and in both cases we already have measured results:
This week it was reports that Health Insurance Premiums growth has slowed to 4% and rebate checks have gone out to insurance subscribers who paid too much as a result....and this is without the mandate fully implemented.
So the net result of the "hidden taxes" Don Diego speaks of has so far been a good one for consumer pocket books.
