Congressional Budget Director Warns Health Care Bills Will Raise Costs

[GaryC 7]

Congressional Budget Director Warns Health Care Bills Will Raise Costs

On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action. But the CBO director warns the proposals will raise costs.

The director of the Congressional Budget Office issued a warning to Democrats Thursday that their health care proposals would raise costs, not lower them.

One day after a Senate panel approved its version of the health care reform plan, the first committee to do so, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf gave a dose of bad medicine to a separate committee.

Asked by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whether costs would be lowered -- also known as "bending the curve" -- Elmendorf responded: "The curve is being raised."

Subsidies to help uninsured people would raise federal health care spending, which is already growing at an unsustainable rate, Elmendorf explained at the hearing. The Medicare and Medicaid cuts that lawmakers have offered to pay for the coverage expansion aren't big enough to offset the cost trend, particularly in the long term, he said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner seized on the comments, calling on Democrats to scrap their plans in light of the assessment.

The remarks come at an inopportune time for congressional leaders who are trying push through and merge several different health care reform plans in the coming weeks, on orders from President Obama.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voiced frustration with Elmendorf, who in recent months has unwittingly set back health care efforts with his office's unflattering analyses of the cost effects of the plans being floated.

"What he should do is run for Congress," Reid said when asked about the latest assessment.

Elmendorf endorsed taxing health benefits as a way of paying for reform, though Obama has spoken out against that idea.

How to pay for the plan is generating a big problem for Congress. The Senate Finance Committee, which is hammering out what could be the only bipartisan bill remaining, is struggling to come up with about $320 billion in revenue to pay for the reforms. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was clearly frustrated Thursday and criticized Obama for opposing a tax on employer-provided benefits.

"The president is not helping us," he said.

Meanwhile, House Democrats on Thursday pushed ahead with legislation that would deliver on Obama's promise to remake the health care system and cover some 50 million uninsured, despite concerns from their own party's moderate and conservative lawmakers that the $1.5 trillion plan costs too much.

On the heels of the Senate health committee's approval Wednesday of a plan to revamp U.S. health care, three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue shifted into action.

The Education and Labor Committee passed an amendment to speed up the bill's guarantee of access to health insurance for people with pre-exisiting medical conditions. The bill as written would have stopped insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, beginning in 2012. The panel agreed Thursday to move up the implementation date for group plans to six months after the bill takes effect.

It was one of about 50 amendments before the committee, which planned to meet throughout the day to complete work on its portion of the bill by day's end.

The tax-writing Ways and Means Committee also was working on its portion of the overall legislation, which seeks to provide coverage to nearly all Americans by subsidizing the poor and penalizing individuals and employers who don't purchase health insurance.

A third House committee, Energy and Commerce, also was considering the measure Thursday, but the road was expected to be rougher there. A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats called the Blue Dogs holds more than a half dozen seats on the committee -- enough to block approval -- and is opposing the bill over costs and other issues.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who chairs the Blue Dogs' health care task force, said the group would need to see significant changes to protect small businesses and rural providers and contain costs before it could sign on. "We cannot support the current bill," he said.

The Energy and Commerce Committee's Blue Dogs met Wednesday to consider what amendments they would offer, and the panel scheduled vote sessions daily through next Wednesday in what promised to be an arduous process to reach consensus.

Obama was doing all he could to encourage Congress to act. He scheduled White House meetings Thursday morning with two potential Senate swing votes, Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. On Wednesday, he met with a group of Senate Republicans in the White House in search of a bipartisan compromise and appeared in the Rose Garden for the latest in a daily series of public appeals to Congress to move legislation this summer.

Obama also pushed his message in network television interviews, and his political organization launched a series of 30-second television ads on health care.

The Senate health panel's $615 billion measure would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class.

But the 13-10 party-line vote on the bill signaled a rift in Congress -- including between Democrats. Some liberal-leaning Senate Democrats are eager to move forward with or without Republican support, while some moderates want to hold out for a bipartisan deal.

The bill would be paired with one from the Senate Finance Committee.

But a core group on Finance -- which, unlike the health committee, must come up with a payment mechanism for the bill -- continued to labor toward bipartisan agreement. Because it might be difficult to secure support from all Democrats, Baucus insisted after daylong meetings Wednesday that a bipartisan bill was needed.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/16...s-votes-health/

[dalegg 143]

I wonder how many businesses with 29 employees will figure out a way to do business with 5 less.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I wonder how many businesses with 29 employees will figure out a way to do business with 5 less.

You're going to end up with a lot more outsourcing of non-critical functions.

[dalegg 143]

I wonder how many businesses with 29 employees will figure out a way to do business with 5 less.

You're going to end up with a lot more outsourcing of non-critical functions.

I'm also thinking of how creative a business owner with 90 employees can get dividing his business into 4 separate ones with his wife and 2 sons owning the other 3.

[GaryC 7]

There are projections that over 100 million people that now have employer paid insurance will lose it. Why give a perk like insurance if the government will offer it?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

There are projections that over 100 million people that now have employer paid insurance will lose it. Why give a perk like insurance if the government will offer it?

The only employers who may continue to offer it will be in cases where the pool of employees is limited, making recruitment and retention a priority.

Any blue collar or low skilled employee will be out.

[Ban Hammer 13,333]

There are projections that over 100 million people that now have employer paid insurance will lose it. Why give a perk like insurance if the government will offer it?

my next door neighbor has buyers remorse already because of this.

[GaryC 7]

I was under the impression that when the government takes over health care the costs will go down. Isn't that the whole point? Why would the CBO say that the health care bill will raise costs then?

[dalegg 143]

One way or another a health care bill is going to pass this year, of that I am certain. Obama's entire Presidency depends on it and he cannot guarantee he'll have the right supporting cast by the mid term elections to have any chance. Its pretty much now or never.

[HAL 9000 96]

One way or another a health care bill is going to pass this year, of that I am certain. Obama's entire Presidency depends on it and he cannot guarantee he'll have the right supporting cast by the mid term elections to have any chance. Its pretty much now or never.

I'd probably not go as far as pinning the Presidency on this one critical issue- but yes... its CRITICALLY important people understand that it was a HUGE campaign promise that will likely be delivered.

What some folks call buyers remorse at seeing the 'higher cost' doom and gloom is nothing other than a misrepresentation of facts that initial costs are called public investments whose dividends pay off as the plan is implemented and group costs go down dramatically. Of course... mentioning this is largely ignored by the doom and gloom club precisely because they aren't stupid and know this is an important point in the President's presidential legacy (and more short term- a 2012 issue against Obama if they can roadblock people's ability to obtain lifelong quality AFFORDABLE medical insurance).