Despite US Debt Woes, Healthcare Proposal Gathers Steam
Posted on: Friday, 27 November 2009, 08:10 CST
The $12 trillion US debt is bringing up new doubts about the price of President Barack Obama's healthcare bill, according to a recent Reuters report.
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan scorekeeper of federal costs, estimated that the Senate healthcare bill would come in at $849 billion.
Those who disagree with the overhaul, a huge goal for Obama, insist that those numbers reveal the bill's true costs and that the price tag is shocking overall.
The White House is responding quickly, insisting that these numbers are not skewed at all. Senior officials say that the legislation is already paid for and that suggested savings would be very beneficial.
"This thing at worst is deficit neutral," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, who is in charge of the White House health reform endeavor. "We believe the delivery system reforms and the other things that are done in this bill will have a bigger impact."
Senator Judd Gregg, a leading Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, stills says that the cost are not accurate because $486 billion in tax increases would kick in soon with Medicare cost reductions.
In addition, Gregg says the bill does not include the full 10-year estimate of a suggested increase in Medicare.
"When all this new spending occurs, this bill will cost $2.5 trillion over that ten-year period," Gregg said.
With the Treasury Department announcing in November that the U.S. debt has hit about $12 trillion, new statistics indicate that the public is increasingly more worried about the cost of the reform.
Still, these concerns should not harm the legislation, said Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan advocacy company.
The glowing CBO report should be beneficial to the Democratic majority in Congress, even though Bixby thinks that the legislation will affect the $2.5 trillion healthcare proposal.
"One of the goals of healthcare reform at the beginning of the year was cost control because everybody concedes healthcare costs are on an unsustainable trend," Bixby said in an interview. "The longer the process has gone on, the less this appears to be about cost control and the more it appears to be about expanding coverage."
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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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