Behind the CBO’s Baucus Bill Score

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Michael D. Tanner, senior fellowmtanner@cato.org:

This is moderation? Although the bill being considered by the Senate Finance Committee is being hailed as a model of moderation and bipartisanship (one Republican may even vote for it), it still represents a government takeover of the health care system.

Start with the price tag. While the top line numbers from the CBO suggest that the bill would cost less than $900 billion over 10 years, and actually reduce future deficits by $81 billion, those numbers fail to tell the whole story. For example, the bill relies on Medicare "savings" that Congress keeps refusing to make. Specifically, Medicare has long been ordered to cut 21 percent from what it pays health care providers—yet, each year since 2003, for reasons both good and bad, Congress has voted to defer the cuts. Does anyone else really think that Congress is simply going to slash payments to doctors and hospitals by 21 percent across the board?

In addition, this bill would still give the government the power to force most Americans to purchase insurance, allow the government to dictate what benefits insurance should offer, and interfere with how doctors practice medicine.

All this, and it would still leave 25 million Americans uninsured.

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