By way of example in considering what I see as fact/fictional reporting about Obamacare, I’m using two articles, one written by Jonathan Chait and one by Stephen Moore in my posts. These two articles are:
1-“Guy Who Gets Paid to Say Obamacare Doesn’t Work Can’t Find a Single True Fact to Support His Case,” Jonathan Chait, NEW YORK MAGAZINE 2/18/15 article, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/obamacare-hater-cant-find-single-true-fact.html, (Chait).
2-“Affordable care that isn’t affordable: Despite the President’s promises, health care costs are going up,” Stephen Moore, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, 2/15/15, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/15/stephen-moore-affordable-care-act-isnt-affordable/, (Moore).
In Part I, Chait v. Moore and Obamacare Healthcare Spending, I concluded that neither Jonathan Chait nor Stephen Moore could know for certain the overall budgetary impacts of Obamacare so far because the government itself doesn’t know according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 1/15/15 publication, “Updated Estimates of the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act,” cited hereafter as (CBO, 1/15/15, page _), “Obamacare and Healthcare SPENDING: Chait v. Moore Part I,” 2/21/15.
Can we address the issue, “IS THE GOVERNMENT ACHIEVING ITS FISCAL TARGETS FOR SAVING MONEY ON HEALTHCARE SPENDING WITH THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT?” Not really.
But can we address the issue: IS THE GOVERNMENT ACHIEVING ITS FISCAL TARGETS FOR DIRECT HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE EXPENSES WITH RESPECT TO HEALTHCARE SPENDING UNDER THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT? Not the way Jonathan Chait or Stephen Moore would have us do it.
There is information provided by the CBO providing budget review information released 2/6/15 for January for four months of this fiscal year and there is information that the CBO released concerning updated estimates for the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA on 1/15/15. These two publications are:
Congressional Budget Office’s, “Monthly Budget Review for January 2015,” 2/6/15, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49924, (CBO, 2/16/15).
Congressional Budget Office’s January of 2015, “Updated Estimates of the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act,” http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/49892-breakout-AppendixB.pdf as (CBO, 1/15/15, page_).
Conservative Stephen Moore argues that our federal government is NOT meeting fiscal targets for the insurance coverage only provisions of Obamacare and Jonathan Chait is arguing that the federal government IS meeting fiscal targets for the insurance coverage only provisions of Obamacare.
Getting Personal: Right away, we know that Jonathan Chait is angry. In his title he refers to Stephen Moore as a “Guy who gets paid to say Obamacare doesn’t work” and accuses him of not having a “…single true fact to support his case.” That’s angry and the source of Mr. Chait’s anger is unclear. But Jonathan Chait indulges his anger in a variety of ways in his article.
Mr. Chait is relentless in his efforts to discredit Mr. Moore’s argument as incoherent, accusing him of not understanding, accusing Moore of concluding the complete opposite of reality, making fun of his writing, “…it is not even an English sentence,” (and that from a writer who includes the phrase True Fact in his title as Chait does), and claiming that Mr. Moore’s claims are untrue.
Does the anger and dislike help us better understand the liberal, Mr. Chait’s article that could conceivably lead us to see him as a guy who gets paid to say Obamacare works? Yes, because the decision to be automatically opposed to Stephen Moore prevents Mr. Chait from being able to acknowledge where Stephen Moore might have gotten things correct, or raised a valid issue. Arguably, Mr. Moore is unable to see beyond his own bias as well.
THE BUDGET DEFICIT: Jonathan Chait begins with Stephen Moore’s assertion that Obamacare was supposed to “…reduce the budget deficit,” (Moore), noting that the “CBO stopped issuing cost estimates of the overall law,” (Chait), as explained in Part I of this series.
I do not excuse Mr. Moore’s manipulation of language here but let’s at least acknowledge that when it comes to “spinning” Obamacare liberals give as good as they get.
Is Mr. Moore’s statement regarding the deficit and Obamacare truthful? Not really. Here’s why: The federal deficit is defined as the AMOUNT EACH YEAR that federal outlays (payments) EXCEED federal RECEIPTS.
When Mr. Moore asserts that Obamacare INCREASES the federal deficit, therefore, based on the CBO’s 2/6/15 “Monthly Budget Review,” he’s not really conveying the information that the CBO provided which is, “Revenues and outlays were both 8 percent higher than they were at this time a year ago,” and that “If lawmakers enact no further legislation affecting spending or revenues, the federal government will end fiscal year 2015 with a deficit of $468 billion, or 2.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), CBO estimates, down from a deficit of $483 billion, or 2.8 percent of GDP, in 2014,” (CBO, 2/6/15) That’s DOWN FROM THE DEFICIT IN 2014.
But since our government is operating at a deficit, as an expense, an outlay, Obamacare contributes to that deficit. Therefore, since all outlays contribute to the deficit and Obamacare is an outlay, then Obamacare contributes to the deficit.
GETTING PERSONAL: Mr. Chait’s anger prevents him from seeing that lines after he criticizes Mr. Moore for using the limited information from the CBO to support his argument about Obamacare increasing the deficit he makes the very same assumption, that without full information there can be a conclusion as to whether fiscal spending is meeting, lower than or exceeding targets.
Mr. Chait even inserts a “happy graph” to support his spin that somehow, still not knowing the full budgetary impact of Obamacare that he can imply that Obamacare is costing the government less than anticipated by inserting a chart that only shows that outlays for direct spending on coverage are lower (naturally omitting any other budgetary impacts which the CBO acknowledges there are but that can’t be determined).
Mr. Chait’s assertion has even less connection to truth regarding the deficit because whereas Mr. Moore could “spin” his assertion about the deficit to say, “Since all outlays contribute to the deficit and Obamacare is an outlay, therefore Obamacare contributes to the deficit,” Mr. Chait cannot say that “Since all outlays contribute to the deficit and Obamacare has lower outlays than predicted that it doesn’t contribute to the deficit.” This is nonsense.
Mr. Chait has to resort to arguing that the outlays by the federal government for direct coverage spending are lower than they were,” but that is largely meaningless without knowing what other shifts in the budget reflect increased or decreased spending from Obamacare.
All we know from Mr. Moore’s assertion and Mr. Chait’s response is that even though Obamacare costs the federal government money, the amount of that money that the federal government is spending on Obamacare from direct coverage spending only is down so far.
Must we give up our issue: IS THE GOVERNMENT ACHIEVING ITS FISCAL TARGETS FOR DIRECT HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE EXPENSES WITH RESPECT TO HEALTHCARE SPENDING UNDER THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT? Not yet.
Gross generalizations, even those using the happy chart are not useful because we cannot determine all the budgetary impacts from the ACA. But it is useful to see whether the specific components of federal healthcare coverage expenses as considered by the CBO are on target in terms of the expectations of Obamacare in order for us to determine whether we can rely on the projections from the CBO.
Therefore, our issue is: IS THE GOVERNMENT ACHIEVING ITS FISCAL TARGETS FOR DIRECT HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE EXPENSES WITH RESPECT TO A COMPARISON OF CBO PROJECTIONS TO EXPERIENCE SO THAT WE CAN RELYON CBO PROJECTIONS MOVING FORWARD?
Next we’ll consider: CBO’s Projections and Obamacare: What they really tell us, Part III of, “Obamacare and Healthcare SPENDING: Chait v. Moore.”
