Senator Gregg: CBO Estimates Pelosi Health Care Bill Will Cost $3 Trillion
But hey, we’ve got money to burn right?
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee today commented on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) more detailed cost estimate of the manager’s amendment to the House health reform bill.
Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.
Truth be told, I don’t think anyone truly has a handle on just how much this bill will cost. Medicare, for instance, has exceeded every government estimate for its cost by a country mile. There’s no reason to expect that this health care bill would remain within even the most extreme cost estimates.
Of course, the point here is to hide the costs until the bill is passed. At which point it will be law and will never, ever go away (just like Medicare) no matter how shaky its fiscal foundations become.
