Actual cost of PelosiCARE $1.8 Trillion – ReidCARE $1.7 trillion according to the CBO

ObamaCare 072409PelosiThe CBO reports that, in their true first 10 years, the House bill would cost $1.8 trillion, and the Senate bill would cost $1.7 trillion according to the New York Post. Pelosi’s plan would raise Americans’ taxes by $1.1 trillion over that period, while Reid would hike them by $1 trillion. And the House bill would siphon about $800 billion from Medicare to spend it elsewhere, while the Senate bill would suck out about $900 billion.

And if we discount the bills’ claims to divert hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare (which is already on the edge of insolvency), the CBO says the House bill would raise our national debt by about $650 billion in its real first decade, while the Senate bill would up it by $740 billion.

So, the bills would either sock older Americans by taking huge sums of money from Medicare — or hit future generations with huge tax hikes to cover the shortfall.

Whether it’s our grandparents or our grandchildren, someone is going to pay.

To give an idea of how much $1.7 (or $1.8) trillion is, let’s compare it to private insurance companies’ profits. The 10 largest insurance companies in America (according to the Fortune 500) last year had combined profits of $8 billion. You could double that, and it still would be less than 1 per cent of $1.7 trillion.

The House and Senate bills are similar in another important way. Each seems to mandate that insurers cover all comers at any time, at only nominal added cost for waiting to sign up.

This would provide a perverse incentive for young, healthy people to avoid carrying insurance — knowing that they could just wait until they’re sick or injured and buy it then. Without question, that would cause premiums to skyrocket for most Americans who now have insurance.

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November 5, 2009 · Filed Under ObamaCARE


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