Multiple sources say that Obama says it will cost about $60 billion/year.
A CATO institute (a conservative think tank stuffed full of republicans who hate Obama) article said:
- "neutral sources" say the cost will be $110 billion/year
- also cited a Health Systems Innovations estimate of $600 billion
- Lewin Group estimated the cost at $571 billion over 9 years [so $63 billion/year]. They also said the total cost of all health care would jump to $1.17 trillion over 9 years [so $130 billion/year].
- HSI estimates the Obama plan would cost $452 billion per year. The Heritage Foundation says they have a higher estimate because they are assuming mandatory coverage of children
- TPC projects the Obama plan would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years [so $160 billion/year]. However, Heritage Foundation says the TPC model did not account for any of the savings measures in the plan. (For a review of the savings built into the plan, see the Wall Street Journal article comments below)
Obama's plan is predicated on a philosophy that "If the highest spending areas could be sanded down to the lowest spending areas, about 30% in "waste," or $700 billion each year, would be saved. More than enough to pay for ObamaCare." However, the author seemed skeptical.
So, for those watching Fox news let me break the news to you--Obama care will not cost over a trillion dollars a year. Not even the conservative pro-republican think tanks are estimating it to cost that much. The real cost is somewhere between $60 - $110 billion/year.
Part of the confusion, I should add, is that Obama-haters do two things to misrepresent the facts: (1) they throw in the pre-existing costs of medicare and medicare that cost over $500 billion to inflate the cost of Obama's plan, or (2) they toss out a 9-10 year figure in a conversation about the annual (1-year) budget. In reality, Obama is cutting those costs and then adding on some new things for a total increase of $60-$110 billion.
So what do all these numbers mean? To give you some perspective on all this, the US spends over $600 billion/year on the military. The next biggest spender after the US is China at $65 billion/year. We spend ten times as much as the next biggest spender (and more than the rest of the world combined)--that is crazy! The 2008 fiscal budget (it was all I could find in my quick review) shows that Iraq ($149.2 billion/year) and Afganistan ($32.8 billion/year) cost a total of $180 billion/year.
So, Obama's health plan (costing between $60-$110 billion/year) will cost 1/6 what the total military expenses cost and about half what the war in Iraq and Afghanistan costs.
Now, I'm not saying we need to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan--maybe we do, maybe we dont. What I'm saying is, Obama's proposed health care plan costs less than the current wars so IF we have to make cuts (and I think we do--we spend way too much money) we need to look at the whole picture and consider which is more important--a $60-$110 billion/year health program or a $180 billion/year war in the Middle East. I think they are both very important, but if I had to chose I'd choose health care for Americans over bullets for foreigners. Ultimately, I think we probably need to do something extreme to cut medicare/medicaid, military spending, and social security in order to balance the budget. What angers me is that democrats blindingly say "you must cut the military budget" and republicans say "you must cut health care and social security." Hello? Isn't it obvious we need to cut it all?
So, if we need to cut the budget, is this the time to spend $60-$110/billion on a new health care program? Well, I'd say yes (go ahead, call me a hypocrite), only because we really need this health plan and I hope (maybe ignorantly) that if we do it we will be forced to make cuts elsewhere to compensate--if not now then soon. Health care is long overdue, and I dont want to lose this short window of support (Clinton's efforts to do this failed).
Regardless, as we continue spending we're likely to see a conservative backlash with a Republican Congress (and maybe even a president) who begin to cut things for us (thank goodness!). I'd be happy about that, as long as we get the health care program in there first. They will be able to trim it later, along with everything else, but the essential program will survive and 50 million Americans need doctors a heck of a lot more than foreign wars.
5 comments:
Why do you think a government run healthcare system is what this country needs? I agree healthcare needs to be reformed but I don't think it should be run by the government. My MIL was just informed she doesn't and will never be able to recieve medicare or social security benefits. The postal service is going bankrupt, and look at how much debt we as a country are in. If we do end up with the Obama care I want to make sure it is done right. Not just thrown in there and we'll work out the kinks later sort of thing. If you're going to do something do it right.
Is it hypocritical to say the government is incompetent and cannot run anything correctly, and yet at the same time to assert the military is great and we should keep dumping absurd amounts of cash into it? As we look at the government it is quite obvious that it has had some failures, some great successes, and some things that have just done okay--just like private enterprise. It is ignorant to perpetuate myths about government as incompetent and private enterprise as infallible. What do you think necessitated all of Obama's comprehensive intervention--the absolute failure of the private industry.
I didn't say the government was incompetent. I agree that the government is there to help the people. However, it is not a myth that the postal service and social security administration is going bankrupt. I don't think the private industry is infallible. The postal service is alot cheaper to use than fedex or ups. However have you ever tried to track a package through the post office? They cannot tel you where your package is at any given moment.
However,
THE seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act – a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.
CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in “subprime” loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.
It is hypocritical of you to think that the government had absolutely nothing to do with the financial crisis our country is in.
Slinging insults? Telling me I'm hypocritical for something I never said/wrote? Wow. That's ruff.
How about you come forth on the identity, Anonymous person?
Sure, the government did play a role in the modern economic crisis; however, it would be foolish to place blame there alone--there is ample to go around, and private industry has earned its fare share. Ford is a great example; they produced terrible cars as year after year Americans bought more and more imports. It was bad busness decisions that killed Ford; not government laws regarding banking procedures.
As per the post office, wow, you think that is a failure? They are a beacon of success to the whole world--and example of a dirt cheap mail system that operated without government subsidy for decades. Only in recent years with the emergence of FedEx and UPS and the unanticipated rise of the internet (can you really blame them for not anticipating the internet?) and, of course, the collapse of the economy (can't really blame them for that either) has the post office struggled financially. Until recently, they were amazingly impressive for much longer than UPS or FedEx have been significant.
Now, of course government is fallible; however, we have the good fortune of impacting government with our vote and lobbies; we cannot do the same for private enterprise. The current health care system is the product of private enterprise and as a consequence we have the worst system in the developed world (according to every source except Fox news--ask the World Health Oganization). Our health care system is an utter failure because we let private enterprise do as it wished; what we need now is to infuse some competition (preferably government competition because private enterprise is just a short step from collaborating to exploit us and adding one more exploiter wont really fix things). What we need is an entity not concerned with gaining profit by provide the worst care for the highest price--and that is why government run competition might be nice. Of course, it could be an utter failure--I admit, the government has failed and succeeded in other areas--but private industry already failed us in healthcare so lets try something new.
I meant naive sorry. I thought about that last night. I equally couldn't believe you called me hypocritical for things I also did not say.
I like your argument. It is the best one I've heard. And I agree that we need competition in the insurance industry. My husband has Cystic Fibrosis he is in the hospital at least once a year. I have to admit that the one thing I liked about Clinton is the fact that once you have insurance you cannot be denied to be picked up by another company. The year we didn't have insurance we paid astronomical cobra fees to keep him insured because we couldn't afford to let his insurance run out.
Thank you for your last comment. I just couldn't help commenting on your throw it together and if it doesn't work we'll fix it later comment in your post.
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