Budget Office: Obama's Health Law Reduces Deficit.
Source: NYT/AP
Congress' budget scorekeepers are taking a new look at President Barack Obama's health care law and they still say it is expected to reduce federal deficits.
It's the first in-depth look by nonpartisan experts since the Supreme Court upheld most of the law last month.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/07/24/us/politics/ap-us-health-care-overhaul-costs.html?hp
Berlum
(7,044 posts)cstanleytech
(26,297 posts)After all its well known that they are to cheap to even send flowers.
Berlum
(7,044 posts)kimbutgar
(21,163 posts)Enrique
(27,461 posts)Reagan proved that."
jmowreader
(50,560 posts)Reagan meant that deficits don't matter when they're caused by tax cuts or when a Republican is in the White House.
If they're caused by Democrats refusing to allow Republicans to eliminate social spending that eventually winds up in the pockets of GOP campaign contributors anyway, like SNAP, or if there are even one dollar's worth of deficit when a Democrat is in the White House, then deficits matter very, very much.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Law helps me and many other 55 to 62 year olds, who cannot afford the huge increase in premiums, and who understand that the co pays, deductibles and other expenses simply add an additional 17,000 bucks ANNUALLY to the cost of life in the USA.
Then there is the same old sticky wicket of knowing that should a catastrophe occur, such as cancer or other serious injury, we still have to spend precious hours of our lives dealing with those same slime ball insurers, arguing about whether or not we or a loved one can have a procedure.
I will never forgive Congress or The President for this piece of crap.
SCOTUS approved or not.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And hopefully, the Republicans won't cut Medicaid more than it has already been cut. If you earn a really good salary, you will pay any additional cost, but if not, you should be able to afford it or get some sort of subsidy for part of it.
You are precisely in the age-range that desperately needs health insurance because it is in your range that serious, very expensive problems begin to develop and can be controlled.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Any political candidates that think they score points while offering up Profit on A Platter for their friends in Industry should realize that a 2,600 page Act that is so confounding no one knows how to explain it should not be surprised if such an act is not popular.
And even should there be a subsidy, why was health care reform much more about a mandate and less about "reform?"
Why is it that people not buying the insurance will receive penalties, while those bastards in the insurance world needn't worry about penalties. And those insurance executives are the ones who have brought about such horrid medical decisions as refusing to pay for treatment to save a ten year old's leg, or refusing to give antibiotics to people who have had an $ 80,000 heart surgery, and due to the lack of the $ 6,000 in antibiotics, the heart surgery patient dies.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Insurance companies will be required to pay out 80% of the money they collect in premiums for health care. They will effectively, as I understand it, be required to reimburse anything they collect that exceeds the 20% they are allowed to take in profits.
The cuts that Republicans are proposing for Medicare and Medicaid will prevent more Americans from getting healthcare than the ACA.
As for the penalty, the insurance companies will be shouldering a much larger part of the health care costs than they are now, offering much more for the money they collect in premiums and will be required to account for the money they receive in penalties. From there we shall see what happens.
The penalty is not nearly as expensive as the cost of the insurance. Requiring everyone to be insured is the only way that you can lower insurance costs for everyone and require insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. It is particularly heartbreaking for families with children born with pre-existing problems to either pay extremely high premiums, impoverish their families to pay for the high premiums or do without medical care for their child.
One of the people shot in Aurora, Colorado is estimated to be incurring $2 million in medical costs. He is uninsured and not wealthy enough to pay that medical care. The cost of his medical care will have to be paid by others. Of course, none of us mind doing that, but he should have been insured so that he and those who provide his care will not be thinking about money, about how they will pay or be paid, but rather focusing solely on his recovery.
I lived in Europe for a number of years and would prefer a single payer plan similar to those that Europeans enjoy and that my family enjoyed when we lived there.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)as since something that does not even come into play until 2014 may not be what they say it will be. And furthermore the section of the ACA that contains the subsidy provisions could be altered or deleted by then.
We all of us know about government acts that had certain provisions changed overnight through the passage of another act. For instance, the nation lost Glass Steagall through the passage of a banking "reform " measure back in 1999 0r 2000, which Bill Clinton went and signed rather than vetoed.
(I have no idea if he know that Glass Steagall was being deleted from our nation's laws when he signed it, and I doubt anyone else knows either.) But anyway, the ACA is not going to be immune from having various of its provisions altered or deleted. Gosh oh gee, if only that bright young black man had won in 2008 - he had campaigned on the notion that he would, if elected see to it that there would be transperancy in laws going through Congress, and that we would no longer have 2,000 pages plus to read in order to know what the law means(meant.)
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)there won't be a problem.
cstanleytech
(26,297 posts)because it had been watered down so much that it wasnt really doing the job it was meant to do originally and Clinton signing it was just the final nail in the coffin that laid it to rest.
As for ACA we will have to wait and see, if the republicans gain control over the houses and mitt becomes president then ya its probably toast.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Why did it take Glass Steagall's repeal to give us the six years of increasing housing bubble-ness, and then the swift fall into utter economic depletion for the Middle Class, with the Banks, Financial Firms, and of course the MIC, to succeed in the fascist take over of the USA.
Forty nine cents of every dollar of profit made in the USA now goes to the large Financial Firms. And when they are done, they will 89% .
On edit: With the passage of the GrammLeachBliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Please note: I don't accept anything from Wikipedia without really thinking about it, but the above has been reiterated by both Krugman and William Black in their various essays and talks on the economic situation. In this case, Wiki offers a nice, concise viewpoint, so I'll go with their explanation, rather than longer ones from Krugman or Balck.
elleng
(130,974 posts)appreciate the info.
Some bits:
{Gramm-Leach-Bliley} repealed part of the GlassSteagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies that prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. With the passage of the GrammLeachBliley Act, commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies were allowed to consolidate. . .
Many believe that the Act directly helped cause the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis. President Barack Obama has stated that GLB led to deregulation that, among other things, allowed for the creation of giant financial supermarkets that could own investment banks, commercial banks and insurance firms, something banned since the Great Depression. Its passage, critics also say, cleared the way for companies that were too big and intertwined to fail.[22] Economists Robert Ekelund and Mark Thornton have also criticized the Act as contributing to the crisis. They state that "in a world regulated by a gold standard, 100% reserve banking, and no FDIC deposit insurance" the Financial Services Modernization Act would have made "perfect sense" as a legitimate act of deregulation, but under the present fiat monetary system it "amounts to corporate welfare for financial institutions and a moral hazard that will make taxpayers pay dearly."[23]
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has also argued that the Act helped to create the crisis.[24] An article in the liberal publication The Nation asserted that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was responsible for the creation of entities that took on more risk due to their being considered too big to fail."[25] Other critics also assert that proponents and defenders of the Act espouse a form of "eliteconomics" that has, with the passage of the Act, directly precipitated the current economic recession while at the same time shifting the burden of belt-tightening measures onto the lower- and middle-income classes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Stiglitz's name, and grateful you caulked over the "black hole" in my brain.
Anytime, true!
cstanleytech
(26,297 posts)made it grow faster.
If and I repeat "IF" they put into place the entire act and not the watered down version it had become at the end as well as break up atleast some of the larger banks then I believe the economy may largely stabilize.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)the American people need a full return to the full Glass Steagall.
However with both pres. candidates believing their friends on Wall Street rather than those three economic people, I don't know that it matters.
NS2012
(74 posts)...and that it's not perfect, but it's a start. Consider it a fixer-upper, baby steps.
But I'll concede, if it is truly adding $17,000 to your cost of living, then that does definitely suck.
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Over 58 years old, and we would pay close to $ 1,100 a month under the California exchange. Then there is an annual $ 2,500 per person deductible, and also co pays. Subsidies are not available yet - maybe that is the idea - allow a whole group of people to fester and rot and then they'll be dead before they can apply for the Social Security and their MediCare.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But then, I was with Kaiser. I don't know whether you can get Kaiser health care, but it might be less expensive.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)It doesn't have any facilities here.
We actually got them to amend their usual policy and keep us on, w after moving to lake County, while our COBRA was still valid, at a mere $ 957 a month for the two of us. But they only did that as they had so badly screwed us over that it took us our entire retirement funds to keep M. alive.
I would consider operating on myself before I would go back to Kaiser.
Their Mission Statement: We don''t care because we don't have to, but send us your premiums anyway.
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)be specific.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)"The court made one exception: States don't have to sign on to a planned expansion of Medicaid for their low-income residents. The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that that could reduce the number of people covered by several million. But taxpayers would also save on costs."
nice.
Seems like a change in direction for this country.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)already know.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)And again claim that repealing the Affordable Care Act would reduce the deficit. They don't even attempt to point out where CBO is possibly wrong. It is like everything else, all hat and no cattle. They have their talking point and nothing will cause them to change that talking point.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)Three million fewer according to the link in the OP. That is why the government is saving money.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)The law is not perfect, but it is a beginning. The bottom line is that more Americans will be covered under this program than if we did nothing. Again, it's not what I would have preferred, but it's a good start.
Shouldn't our anger be directed at the Republicans and the cowardly Democrats who aided them? Bigger question: In order to get a better health care reform initiative--one that has the remote chance of containing a public option--shouldn't we be directing our efforts towards electing more *progressive* Democrats to Congress?
Blaming Obama is not going to solve our problems. Giving him a more progressive HOUSE and SENATE will!
former9thward
(32,025 posts)We need single payer or the medical system will bankrupt the nation. Tinkering around the edges like the ACA did just won't help.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)the legislation that you and I want through. Until then, we're stuck. Unless we get MORE, not less, progressive Democrats, the ACA will be the best we can get.
Talk to me about solutions. How do we get more progressives in Congress, since it takes Congress to get things done?
eppur_se_muova
(36,269 posts)US auditors say the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Barack Obama's health law will save the government $84bn (£54bn) over 11 years.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says most of the savings come from the Supreme Court's decision that states do not have to expand Medicaid programmes.
The CBO also found millions fewer poor people than anticipated will have health coverage because of the ruling.
And it said that repealing the law would raise the deficit by over $100bn.
The law's combined revenue increases and spending cuts are larger than the cost of expanding coverage, according to the CBO's independent analysts.
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/18977189
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)It's significant!
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Not even MSNBC talked about it.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)The devil is in the details. Because of the ruling 3 million fewer people will be covered by healthcare insurance. That will save the federal government 84 billion.