The Unaffordable Care Act

The latest report from the GAO confirms not only what Republicans claimed would happen as a result of Obamacare; but a vast majority of the Healthcare Finance professionals I work with had said the very same thing.

Perhaps it would have been better if the President brought the experts to the table when drafting the plan – but he did not.

Once again – let me state – I am not clairvoyant; I merely have common sense and understand basic math.

The GAO (United States Government Accountability Office) released a report this week titled:

PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT - Effect on Long-Term Federal Budget, Outlook Largely Depends on Whether Cost Containment Sustained

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Tuesday showing that if cost-control measures are not maintained the Affordable Care Act could increase the deficit by $6.2 trillion, or .7 percent of GDP, over the next 75 years. The report shows President Barack Obama’s comments that Obamacare would “not add a dime to the long term debt" - are false.

The result of this brand new report confirmed what Republicans were saying about the bill.

The report is the first to look at the long-term effects of the Affordable Care Act beyond a ten-year period.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) previously had projected the cost of Obamacare over a ten-year period and found it would save more than $100 billion if certain policies remained the same—policies that CBO director Doug Elmendorf said would be hard to maintain.

“CBO’s cost estimate noted that the legislation maintains and puts into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time,” Elmendorf said at the time.

The new GAO study ran two projections: one in which those cost reduction policies were maintained and another projection in which Congress phased out the reduction policies put into Obamacare.

“The long-term fiscal outlook depends largely on whether elements in PPACA designed to control cost growth are sustained,” the report said. Under either scenario “the federal budget remains on an unsustainable path.”

Nancy Pelosi called Obamacare a money saver in 2011 and warned that repealing Obamacare would cause “very serious violence to the national debt and deficit.”

The Senate Committee on Finance features a webpage saying Obamacare “reduces the deficit by more than a trillion dollars in the coming decades.”

“I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period,” Obama said in 2009 when he signed the ACA.

The claims President Obama made were false then and they are still false now.

Resources & Links

GAO - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – Highlights of what the GAO Found

The Affordable Care Act: More than $800 Billion in Tax Cuts

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/chairman/release/?id=3864d045-2156-426b-afda-11bad0b69986

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/09/study-claims-obamas-health-care-law-would-raise-deficit/

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-repealing-obamacare-would-do-very-serious-violence-national-debt

http://www.mysoutex.com/view/full_story_bee/10924805/article-Obamacare-repeal-doesn%E2%80%99t-increase-deficit

http://freebeacon.com/an-unaffordable-care-act/