GOP Doesn't Account for Health Care Repeal Cost

CBS/ AP

Updated 2:50 p.m. Eastern Time

House Republicans announced Monday that they would vote to repeal health care reform legislation next week. The legislation that they would repeal, according to an estimate by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, would reduce the budget deficit by $143 billion over a decade.

According to the rules laid out by the incoming House Republican majority, the House must pay for all new legislation that increases federal spending - and a repeal bill, of course, is a form of legislation. That would suggest that they must come up with $143 billion to make up for the cost of repealing the health care bill.

The GOP solution? To exempt repeal from that rule.

On page 26 of the GOP rules package, which will be voted on tomorrow, is word that Republicans can "exempt the budgetary effects of legislation repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010."

(Also exempt, incidentally: The cost of extending the Bush-era tax cuts and the estate tax under the tax deal worked out late last year, changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax, the cost of a 20 percent gross income deduction for small businesses, and the cost of implementing trade agreements. In addition, tax cuts in general do not have to be paid for.)

Republicans defend the exemption by arguing, in effect, that the CBO estimate doesn't reflect the full reality of the health care reform legislation. Shortly before the bill was signed into law, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf noted that the reform bill "would maintain and put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time." The bill's opponents seized on that comment to argue that the cost savings in the bill are an illusion.

Republicans have been careful to stress that they are not questioning the legitimacy of the CBO, one of the few organizations that both parties can (usually) agree on. When discussing the estimate last year, soon-to-be Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said that the CBO is full of "great professionals" who "do their jobs well."

"But their job is to score what is placed in front of them," he said. "And what has been placed in front of them is a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke and mirrors."

In an email, Michael Steel, spokesman for incoming House Majority Leader John Boehner, suggested that it doesn't make sense to pay for repealing a bill that isn't actually going to save any money.

"No one believes that the job-killing healthcare law will lower costs, because it won't," he said.

Democrats, by contrast, say Republicans are trying to make an end run around their own ostensible commitment to fiscal restraint.

Vince Morris, a spokesman for Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), told Politico that the provision "allows Republicans to pretend that their campaign promise to repeal the health care bill will have no cost."

UPDATE: Asked about the budget implications of repeal Tuesday afternoon, Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said: "I think most people understand that the CBO did the job it was asked to do by then the Democrat majority and it was really comparing apples to oranges because it talked about ten years worth of tax hikes and six years worth of benefits. Everyone knows beyond the ten-year window this bill has the potential to bankrupt this federal government as well as the states."

[crazyname]

Who cares, The cost to repeal this debackle cannot be anywhere near as costly to impliment it and pay for another 30,000 IRS employees. What a bunch of crap and the Dems and the news media keep on playing it! Why doesn't the media do a real investigative report on how much the new healthcare plan will cost this country. Of course that means somebody has to read it first!

[simpleconservative]

Sure, this is the same non partisan CBO that underestimated the cost of medicare by a factor of 10. If you believe these clowns I have some interesting bridge listings in Brooklyn!

[doctordawg]

Links, please. The Republicans praise the CBO on a regular basis. If you are questioning the Republican's gullibility, well, bravo.

[HolyVoice]

The recent Federal Court decision in Virginia that strikes down section 1501 (which compels people to buy health insurance) basically makes the entire plan unworkable.
by wce95 January 4, 2011 3:16 PM EST

If that is all it takes to destroy the provisions of this law, it couldn't have been a viably designed law to begin with. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not sustainable in a non-Christian country. People don't automatically deserve physical handicaps, bad health, disease, and geriatric conditions; they get there by accidents, lack of vaccines, genetic, diet and environmental influences, and everybody gets there over time.

But Health care is a profit center, and health insurance is not the only way to pay for it. Costs have gone up in the double digit percentiles for years. The people who need these services must pay the price if they don't have insurance. To change this is not a capitalistic practice. Capitalism says that the people that can afford it, get it, and the people who don't must do without. It also says that the supply and demand forces determine price equilibrim, and the reason costs are so high is that the health care demand has increased, but supply of affordable health insurance has decreased. Business practices in pursuit of captialism say that if you can limit the supply, you can influence the price higher through demand.

This is the reason why the GOP would repeal The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Repealing it doesn't create jobs, it maintains this medical care business model for America.

[RobAla]

They don't need to, as it would certainly be far less costly than the stupid health care bill. May 2010 CBO figures state that the bill will cost the taxpayers $1 trillion in new spending over 10 years. 21 states are suing the federal government over this horrible bill because of the $billions in unfunded mandates this bill will cost them in providing huge additional Medicaid coverage. Then there are the personal cost this bill inflects on the majority of Americans in cause our health care premiums to go up. We can save a lot by dumping this bad bill. We can't afford it.

[noloyalisti]

These fake fiscal conservative Republicans should also investigate passing the Medicare Part D, yet another corporate welfare giveaway in the middle of the night. Republicans actually think that greed, taking from the poor if you can and enriching a few campaign donors at the expense of the rest of the country are VIRTUES. You have to understand the firm father figure mind of the conservatives in order to battle them efficiently.

[steeepe]

Maybe Issa should make this the first investigation, followed by investigations of Bush and Cheney as war criminals who almost destroyed the country.

[ShutUpWingnuts]

My sentiments exactly!

[ShutUpWingnuts]

Not to mention a REAL investigation of the Valerie Plame affair

[noloyalisti]

We should have raised the social security caps 10 years ago. We should never have enacted the REAGAN tax cuts. We would have accounted for all this shortfall. Now the rich will have to pay even more than their fair share to make up for it. All out prosperity since Reagan has been on credit and with smoke and mirrors. While the filthy rich have gotten filthier.

[hsr060]

**? Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion--60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)).?

[hsr060]

1. The reps claimed earlier : Are you listening to people ?

The biggest concern about the economy is a job market, (according to CNN polling, voters said that unemployment is roughly twice as important as all other top issues combined.)

(a) The reps do not know how to create jobs, they just have a bunch of general vague ideas that are good for TV spots and adds, but no detailed plans except to go back to business as usual. So all they can do is grandstand and complain and moan. That is a lot easer that actually coming up with ideas that work.

(b) So even though the reps KNOW they can't overturn the new healthcare law, they are going to waste time and money making more NOISE about it just to stir up their base for the 2012 election. It's not like there's anything else for them to do.

And the reps are the first to point and cry about government waste while at the same time they are wasting tax payer money doing it.

2. The reps claimed earlier : Are you listening to people ?

(a) The vast majority of the PEOPLE wanted the public option that the House passed and a majority of the Senate favored, but it couldn't get past the Republican filibuster.

Many voters who oppose the law actually want stronger provisions, not weaker. There remains strong majority support for the public option and stronger laws against industry price-fixing.

(b) The healthcare law will not be repealed. Attempts to repeal healthcare reform will be a big loser for Republicans. Some of the most vehement Republicans pushing for repeal will find their seats endangered in 2012 because of it.

3. The reps are chanting the deficit cut.

(a) Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade. Without ACA, health costs will skyrocket, leading to more personal, corporate, and governmental bankruptcy.

(b) The insurers set up a monopoly via consolidation violating an anti-trust law.

(c) The biggest 10 healthcare providers are driven mostly to please Wall Street and must show growing profits every three months in their reports to wall Street or their stocks values go down. So healthcare prices climb at an unreasonable rate at the expense of everyone involved.

[crazyname]

It has got to be a hell of a lot cheaper and better for the country to repeal it rather than let the damn thing go through! If you think there is no connection between healthcare and jobs, ask small business, big business and farmers. The dems will come up with any garbage to make the debackle look viable. Their stupid base believes it, of course most of them have their hands out for everything from soup to nuts, while the hard working people have ouf money stolen and given to lazy baby machines and young criminals to live on!

[jimbom121]

The bill bends the cost curve. If you do nothing, then costs will continue to rise.

At some point, maybe employers may be able to get out of providing health insurance.