Originally I had the message of Obamacare backwards. Based on what I was informed about from the media to the President, I thought Obamacare was supposed to protect consumer patients AND would do it while saving the government money on healthcare spending.
But I was wrong, the priorities were exactly the opposite, to save the government money on healthcare spending and hopefully get consumer buy-in by introducing some “patient protections,” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
If from the beginning I’d been informed that the PPACA was at best an Affordable Care (for Government) and Maybe A Patient Protection Act, a law to reduce government healthcare spending, then I would have EXPECTED that the first priority would have precedence over the second so that when I DID NOT save $2,500 a year, when I DID NOT gain protection from financial ruin in the event of illness, when I did NOT get the choice to keep my old plan, when I did NOT find myself better off financially but rather worse off, well, then, MAYBE, if the government was still saving money on healthcare spending, then perhaps I could have still considered the law a success.
That’s the issue in the two articles discussed below, IS THE GOVERNMENT ACHIEVING ITS FISCAL TARGETS FOR SAVING MONEY ON HEALTHCARE SPENDING WITH THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT?
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).
Spoiler alert. WE DON’T KNOW WHETHER OBAMACARE IS SAVING THE GOVERNMENT MONEY OVERALL OR NOT BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T KNOW. But it doesn’t stop these two guys from making claims that THEY know, which is not true.
Here’s why: While there is information from the Congressional Budget Office concerning the insurance coverage budgetary impact for the federal government attributable to the ACA, the Congressional Budget Office states in its 1/15/15 report cited below that “…estimates address only the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA and do not reflect all of the act’s budgetary effects…because the provisions of the ACA that do not relate directly to health insurance coverage generally modified existing federal programs (such as Medicare) or made various changes to the tax code, determining what would have happened since the enactment of the ACA had the law not been in effect is becoming increasingly difficult,” 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, page 1.
This is important. The Congressional Budget Office states that it can’t “…produce estimates of the budgetary effects of the ACA as a whole as part of the baseline process,”…but can only produce comparisons of what government expenses are from the NEWLY established programs, (CBO, 1/15/15, page 1).
This makes sense, you can only compare what you thought expenses would be and what they are regarding expenses that are created by the Affordable Care Act because in established programs, like Medicare, determining which part of the expenses are attributable to the Affordable Care Act and which aren’t is difficult. The conclusion for the CBO: “As a result, CBO does not produce estimates of the budgetary effects of the ACA as a whole as part of the baseline process,” (CBO, 1/15/15).
So, for today, let’s give both authors a reprimand: You cannot determine whether Obamacare is achieving government savings goals overall because its budgetary impacts are broader than direct insurance coverage provisions and these broader impacts cannot be determined by the government so you cannot determine them either.
Next, we’ll proceed to: “MAKING IT PERSONAL,” Part II of, “Obamacare and Healthcare SPENDING: Chait v. Moore.”
