Henry Aaron does the healthcare take down
| [AO: Here are excerpts from an op-ed by Henry J. Aaron in the Washington Post. This is our third piece in the take down series. Here, Aaron reviews a column by Robert J. Samuelson. ]
The Congressional Budget Office has answered the first question: The House-passed bill and the one before the Senate would offset the spending necessary to extend coverage with other spending cuts and tax increases. These bills would reduce the deficit slightly over the first 10 years and more later. . . Samuelson disparages the budget cuts because Congress has not always enforced promised spending reductions. Congress has, however, repeatedly stuck with promised cuts in health-care spending — in 1990 and 1993 as part of budget deals that helped balance the budget in that decade, in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Most of these cuts, like those proposed in the health-care bills, were gradual. . . In his column this week, Samuelson cited a Center for American Progress study and seemed to accept its estimates. But according to that study, the bills under consideration would shave more than $1 trillion from national health-care spending and use half that money to extend coverage. Yet Samuelson says that isn’t good enough. . . [AO: These are only a few of the issue Aaron addresses. Follow the link below for the full story. ] |
. . . The simple fact is that insuring tens of millions must initially raise health-care spending. How else could the previously uninsured enjoy an increase in health-care services? It is, however, fair to ask whether the bills under consideration pay for those added costs and promise credibly to slow the long-term growth of health-care spending.Read the full opinion HERE.
