OK, America, let’s take a little closer look at what exactly our government has handed us in the new Health Care Reform law. I’ll go through the litany of other problems with the bill later, but now let’s just concentrate on what the government says it will cost. Then we’ll look back at other projections our government has made.
Right now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects this legislation will cost $940 billion over the next 10 years. (Side note: Did you know we’re going to start getting taxed almost immediately to support this law, but the benefits won’t arrive until 2014? Do you understand that? If not, start making payments on a car now that you can’t drive for another 4 years and see if you like it.)
Oddly enough, the government itself has made my research a bit easier with this report. Here, however, are the highlights:
What/When Estimated Cost / by Actual Cost / by % Error
Medicare/1965 $12 Billion/1990 $110 Billion/1990 917%
Medicaid DSH/1987 $1 Billion/1992 $17 Billion/1992 1700%
Mass. Health Reform/2006 $472 Million/2008 $628 Million/2008 133%
I’m not sure what you’re thinking about when you read those numbers, but I’m thinking oops. So, let’s conservatively put the past record of just our federal government to its own litmus test by saying that perhaps the CBO is off by… I dunno… 1000%. That means by 2020, this neat little health care reform law will cost me, my children, you and your children $9.4 trillion dollars. I hope you’re ready because there is only a couple of ways to pay for this, and they’re both bad.
Never mind this is the single largest Constitutional overreach by our federal government in the history of this nation. On that thought, I might just make a special trip to Oklahoma, stand over the grave of my grandfather, and apologize that his sacrifices during WWII were in vain. Apparently his efforts only bought us another 65 years of a Constitution worth dying for. We really screwed up this time, America, and it might be too late.
