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.

Tags: , ,


«
»
  • http://Array sayanything-2819

    Conservatives were against this bill which barely passed in the house. In the Senate it was 41 Republicans and 35 Democrats. A truly bipartisan bill which was passed with both sides using the arm twist method or bribery in which many of these things get done.

    Of course it cost more than promised, these things ALWAYS do! But, President Bush needed to prove he was a uniter and not a divider. Republicans who try to appease the liberal bottomless pit always end up getting blamed when they put forth liberalism lite and it doesn’t work out or costs more than promised. Another example of this is the No Child Left Behind Act.

    As for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan…..both of these actions were legally voted upon and debated in Congress and had near unanimous bipartisan support. Though the strategy has been mishandled and it has taken longer and cost more than it should, you overlook the fact that Democrats, by voting for it and then against it and using it has a cudgel in their attempt to unseat President Bush, prolonged the action in Iraq. They used Afghanistan for political purposes in 2008, now we see the exact same thing happening there as happened in Iraq. A resurgence in resistance and attacks on civilians and soldiers.

    Your entire post was untrue.

  • sayanything-2819

    Why should we exclude ourselves from programs which we fund through our tax dollars? Because we oppose them? Asinine as usual, Dino.

  • sayanything-2819

    I believe I have refuted you with facts and research. The fact is that the Prescription bill could not have passed without Democratic support. Kennedy did vote against it, but Daschle voted for it.

    As for the motives behind the bill, that is what Democrats charged and we all know that Democrats would never resort to pandering, lying and doublespeak. Like Louise Slaughter today saying that the protesters outside the Capital today THREATENED them over this health care vote. How were they threatening for exercising their CONSTITUTIONALLY protected right to assemble and address their grievances to Congress? How were they threatening when they declared that they would work to defeat them under the CONSTITUTIONALLY protected right to vote and speak their opinions about this monstrosity.

    Forgive me Dino if I do not fall for your obfuscations and distortions. It is because I am ignorant and in need of a brain transplant. Hey, when you all get this crap in place, maybe you could follow the Kennedy model of dealing with troublesome sorts, with a government mandated and funded lobotomy.

  • sayanything-2819

    Dino thinks if he says it often enough it is true. He wants so badly for it to be true. He thinks it provides cover for the beyond huge deficit this pres and congress is adding.

  • sayanything-2819

    An illogical statement, please explain how a program goes over budget when not properly funded? And, why is it not properly funded? Could it be because those idiots in DC with their pie in the sky programs are not grounded in reality and focus on the benefits they gain for themselves in their reelection bid and not the actual ramifications of what they are voting for?

  • sayanything-6955

    I look in the mirror and say good work, damn good work!

  • sayanything-1317

    It takes a pretty big set of juevos to claim that a program that receives 200 billion (when it’s only supposed to cost 50 billion is underfunded. It then takes even MORE juevos to claim that the overspending is due to underfunding.

    Dino’s arguments get more ridiculous by the day.

  • sayanything-6955

    Three trillion= Six trillion in government speak. We don’t have it and don’t have a way to get it!

  • sayanything-4416

    They go over budget when not properly funded.

  • sayanything-4416

    From Fox News, 11/25/03:

    The passage of the bill designed to have the government co-pay seniors’ prescription drug costs makes for the most extensive overhaul of Medicare since the health-care program was created in 1965.

    “This is a tremendous milestone. It is great news for seniors of our nation,” said Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo.

    “Prescription drugs in the past have been denied to our seniors, but will be there as a result of this legislation,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said shortly after the vote.

    Ok, that’s 2 conservatives for the bill.

    “I am not proud of this bill,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

    “The test of every great civilization is how it cares for its elderly,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the staunchest foes of the measure. “I am absolutely convinced that at the end of the day we will preserve the Medicare system, which is threatened, threatened seriously by this proposal, and we will get the day when we have a real prescription drug program, which our seniors deserve and which this nation owes to those individuals.”

    There’s 2 liberals against.

    Senate approval of the bill gives Bush and the congressional Republican majorities a significant legislative and political triumph on an issue that Democrats have long exploited in political campaigns.

    And there’s the rest of the cons for it.

    And why did conservatives support it? They wanted to break Medicare. You know, the Medicare they say they now want to protect.

    Democrats charge the plan is a sellout to drug companies — and pointed out the bill’s prime supporters have received $14 million from the health care industry, reports CBS News Correspondent John Roberts.

    Even before he signed the legislation, Democrats stepped up their criticism.

    House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and other opponents scheduled a rally with seniors to underscore their claim the measure threatens Medicare’s future.

    “Many people will wake up and discover that the Medicare bill is a cruel hoax,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., told reporters Sunday. “It does not provide the kind of benefits that they had hoped for, and it will lead to the undermining of Medicare traditionally.”

    Do you people even know how to think much less research history?

  • sayanything-6955

    And the point of the post anyway is that if Gov says one price tag, you are a fool to believe it, better at least triple it!

  • sayanything-4416

    So then you have no way to refute the fact that conservatives rammed the unfunded Medicare drug plan down your throat? Didn’t think so.

    When it comes to thinking and supporting your misguided beliefs, you choke. All you people have is whining, bitching and complaining. However, that never stops you from taking as much as you can from the system you try to destroy.

    Not sure how you can look at yourselves in a mirror.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    I’m sorry, but wasn’t Bush’s prescription drug entitlement criticized by Democrats only for not being lavish enough?

    And are you operating under the assumption that conservatives were for it?

    This conservative certainly wasn’t.

    You’re proving my point. Government health care efforts go way, way over budget.

  • sayanything-4416

    Where were you slugs when this was going on?

    Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion

    Estimate Dwarfs Bush’s Original Price Tag

    The White House released budget figures yesterday indicating that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade, a much higher price tag than President Bush suggested when he narrowly won passage of the law in late 2003.

    Then of course there’s the cost of the war in Iraq that has exceeded estimates by many times.

    Selective fiscal restraint you exhibit. Never saw you bitching about the additional $5 TRILLION the republicans added to the debt from 2001 to 2007.

  • sayanything-4416

    It was your party that rammed it through without thinking about funding it.

    You slugs can say you were against anything that didn’t work out. It’s how you attempt to avoid blame. You deny and deflect.

    How come there were no concerted efforts to protest it? No teabaggers storming the Capitol? No angry town halls?

    Disingenuous at best.

  • sayanything-4416

    You ignore all the help you received from the collective along the way.

    And you wouldn’t have contributed a penny to the greater good if you weren’t forced to.

    Why do you people get so defensive when someone points out the inherent selfishness of your ideology?

  • sayanything-6955

    Take your candle and head back to the outhouse, without folks like me and those coal mines that’s where you would be.
    Where do you get hard work is selfish? Obviously you know nothing about it.

  • sayanything-4416

    We’ve had to spend billions of taxpayer money to clean up the mess left by mining. Another triumph of the free market capitalism that you worship.

    Hope you can make it through the due diligence of proving that your land wasn’t contaminated by the mining operation. Otherwise it might as well be a nuclear waste facility when you go to sell it.

    And good luck collecting damages from the mining industry. They’re more than happy to stick you with that bill.

  • sayanything-4416

    Of course. You people have to affect a distorted self-image otherwise the truth of who you are would depress you to suicide.

  • sayanything-6955

    I don’t know where you get that all conservatives do is take crap, I have paid into social security and medicare for 39 years so far, as well as income and sales taxes up the wazoo for just as long, yet I have never ever taken a unemployment check “never needed one”, donated to several charities, yet still manage to own two homes in ND and a condo in Wyoming, so there must have been a few dollars go to property taxes too. And I am a taker? Screw you leftist fool, I work hard and take risks and the reward are mine! Not you redistributionist bastards! The only ones trying to destroy the system that allows people like me to prosper are takers like you.

  • sayanything-6955

    Oh and I forgot we bought land 25 years ago that now borders a coal mine that we hope to sell sometime and make a few more dollars on too, if you bastards don’t ruin that industry too.

  • sayanything-6955

    You circus freak, most of us were dead set against that Medicare prescription boondoggle!

  • sayanything-6955

    You crack me up child mortimer, Pelosi, Kennedy, and Clinton? There is three experts I’m going to have faith in. Go away, your box is full of quarters.

  • sayanything-4416

    Yes, we need coal but the mining industry is notorious for contaminating land and water and skating on their responsibilities for cleanup.

    Do you live that way? Perhaps.

    The chances of your land being adversely affected are high. Then I’ll bet you see the light and demand those responsible clean it up.

    Good luck with that.

  • sayanything-6955

    All of his comments and posts are untrue.

  • sayanything-4416

    Jvette, tell me which part isn’t true and I’ll destroy your argument in seconds.

  • sayanything-4416

    PS. That won’t stop you and yours from taking full advantage of the program. Like all programs you protest, you participate in them fully, never missing a chance to get in line for the goodies.

Create a SAB Readerblog


Recent Comments

Powered by Disqus

Blog Advice and Support
Installs and Upgrades
Theme Modifications
Custom Plugins
Theme Design
Conversions and Relocations
Hacked Site Recovery
Mobile Apps Development