“Just before health reform became law in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the Affordable Care Act would reduce budget deficits. This week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote that, four years later, “the agencies have no reason to think that their initial assessment that the ACA would reduce budget deficits was incorrect.” Here is a convenient guide to CBO’s original cost estimate, and all the law’s essential features remain in place. The measures that subsidize the expansion of health coverage are budget costs. Those costs are more than offset, however, by budget savings in Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, as well as revenues from taxes and fees. The resulting deficit reduction will be modest over the first 10 years, CBO projects, but larger in the ensuing decade. The health care law sought to ensure that ALL Americans have access to affordable health care. It includes important and popular reforms that prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, charging higher premiums based on a person’s health status or gender, or placing annual or lifetime caps on covered benefits. In return, it requires everyone to obtain health insurance as long as it’s affordable or pay a penalty. This so-called “individual mandate” is critical to achieving these popular reforms. You can’t have one without the other.” usnews/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/06/20/cbo-confirms-obamacare-reduces-deficits
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 06:03:56 +0000
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