We've all been there: you fell for the add and are now standing in the middle of car-dealers parking lot and the price that was advertised on the TV or in the paper is nowhere to be seen.
Except this time it’s our government - once more.
By now you have seen that the price tag for ‘Obamacare’ has inched up a tiny bit above the ‘advertised price,’ from $900 billion over the next ten years to $1,740 billion. Several thoughts should be drawn from that.
1) Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates aren't worth much, except to point out that things are much more expensive then government says they will be – CBO’s record is not exactly exemplary, and while they have been closer then this in the past, they regularly 'under-guess' costs. (There is no way I will lend credence to a product that is nearly 100% off by calling this something that sounds pseudo-scientific by calling it an estimate. This was no better then a bad guess.)
2) While virtually every single reasonable outside authority said ‘Obamacare’ was going to mean excessive costs, the White House insisted it would not. Either the people putting the figures together for the White House (remember, they came up with their own numbers before the CBO did) are as equally incompetent as the ones at the CBO, or they were not telling the truth. While it might seem to be worth noting that the administration actually thought it would cost less then the CBO, it’s not worth a lot. That the administration was ‘gun-decking’ the books is assumed. Take your pick: incompetent or not telling us the truth.
3) We aren't done yet. If we can already say, at the end of the first year, that the cost is twice as much as first thought, we can only image what the total cost will be in another 3 or 4 years. If you don't agree, name a major federal entitlement program that has regularly decreased in cost over time. Just to rewind the clock, ‘Obamacare’ was supposed to provide healthcare for an additional 30 - 35 million Americans (without increasing supply - how? Who knows?) Currently, comprehensive health care costs between $8 - 9,000 per person per year. 8 x 30 = 240 What that means is the likely cost of ‘Obamacare’ is going to be not the currently projected $174 billion per year, but probably $240 billion or more per year. That would mean the program over the first ten years of its life would be considerably above $2 trillion, not the $900 billion the administration and the CBO first claimed, or the $1,740 billion the CBO is now trumpeting. And I would guess my estimate is low. It could easily be more than $3 trillion. Remember, this was supposed to not only provide better health care to more people, it was also supposed to 'control' medical costs.
4) This says something about government in general. Every month we have another story about a DOD weapons systems procurement that is well over budget, every year we have multiple tales of government waste and abuse of taxpayers' money, and every year we have reports from CBO that tell about government programs that cost more than originally estimated, and then CBO is found to be lowballing the numbers AND the programs and weapon systems don't work as well as planned or provide the level of service or care as intended AND then we are asked to fund even more programs and then we are told that the only solution is even bigger programs, and this time - BY GOD – we are going to get it right, not like the last bunch of folks who promised you all this and a Hershey’s Bar.
Here's the hint: governments are not efficient and they are only rarely effective. But they do take our money, and then take our freedoms, slowly, incrementally, by controlling more and more aspects of each and every industry and sector of our economy and our polity. I suppose it might make some sense to some people to surrender freedom if you were getting something for it. But we can't even claim that in most cases. Instead, the money goes into the big mill, it gets churned around, and then we are told to put more in.
Enough.
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