Obama Health Care: will it be free?

I would like free insurance for everyone. However, that is not possible right now for our country. Why? Because we are not managing our resources properly. Major funding for all these health care bills being tossed around require cuts in Medicare benefits.

SF Examiner:

Elmendorf warned that the figures could change once the bill was translated into legislative language.

The report also shows Medicare would take a substantial financial hit, with permanent reductions in payment rates for services (excluding physicians’ services) totaling $279 billion over 10 years. The bill would also cut Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals by $45 billion. The CBO projects that a yet-to-be-created Medicare Commission will cut subsidies for the extra benefits provided under the Medicare Advantage program and reduce the subsidies for the Medicare prescription drug program in an effort to save $22 billion.

The Obama administration is actually doing what the Bush administration was doing. Both administrations were being fiscally irresponsible and Obama is hell bent on outspending his predecessor. In that regard he has been successful.

I am a registered Independent. You are probably a Republican or Democrat. We all have something in common and that is we are all taxpaying Americans who will soon be paying more taxes. There are mandates involved with this the proposed health insurance programs. Listen to Obama trying to convince Stephanopoulos (who is a loyal Obama supporter) that this is not a tax.

George Stephanopoulos is incredulous with Barack Obama not admitting this is a TAX

In the interview, President Obama wants to use auto insurance as an example. What if you don’t own a car and only use public transportation? In his example you would have to buy auto insurance. Stephanopoulos is right but he missed a chance to enlighten our president this is a mandate or a forced tax.

We have a health bill proposal that is suppose to reduce the budget deficits with accounting gimmicks. The banks are doing it so why not the government? Below is the explanation of how to juggle numbers to explain how spending $829 billion will cut the budget deficit by $81 billion over 10 years.

From the Congressional Budget Office:

According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period. The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period. In subsequent years, the collective effect of those provisions would probably be continued reductions in federal budget deficits. Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent. Roughly 23 million people would purchase their own coverage through the new insurance exchanges, and there would be roughly 14 million more enrollees in Medicaid and CHIP than is projected under current law. Relative to currently projected levels, the number of people either purchasing individual coverage outside the exchanges or obtaining coverage through employers would decline by several million.Although CBO does not generally provide cost estimates beyond the 10 year budget projection period (2010 through 2019 currently), Senate rules require some information about the budgetary impact of legislation in subsequent decades, and many Members have requested CBO analyses of the long-term budgetary impact of broad changes in the nation’s health care and health insurance systems. However, a detailed year-by-year projection, like those that CBO prepares for the 10-year budget window, would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.

All told, the proposal would reduce the federal deficit by $12 billion in 2019, CBO and JCT estimate. After that, the added revenues and cost savings are projected to grow more rapidly than the cost of the coverage expansion. Consequently, CBO expects that the proposal, if enacted, would reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade relative to those projected under current law—with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between one-quarter percent and one-half percent of GDP. The imprecision of that calculation reflects the even greater degree of uncertainty that attends to it, compared with CBO’s 10-year budget estimates.