The GOP-controlled House is of the opinion that "defunding" the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit. In line with that thinking, last month Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) offered an amendment that House Republicans say would be part of their 'solution' to lower federal spending for the remainder of the year.
According to a new cost estimate released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office, if Congress prohibits the Obama administration from funding implementation of the healthcare law, federal spending would indeed fall in the first year. However, it would rise in the very next one...and the next one after that...and the one after that...
Defunding healthcare law would cost the government billions of dollars over 10 years
When all's said and done, Republicans' plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act piece-by-piece would actually increase spending by $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2012 and continue to increase by smaller amounts each fiscal year from 2013 through 2021.
The CBO's cost estimate also found that repealing the health insurance mandate would increase the number of people without health insurance by 16 million people in 2021. It would also increase premiums for insurance policies in the individual market by "15 percent to 20 percent"--not to mention cripple existing Medicare programs.
Paul Krugman gets to the heart of the matter in his column yesterday about how Republicans claim to be for deficit reduction, yet reject any rational attempt to deal with America's long-term deficit and fiscal problems (one example: dismissing comparative effectiveness research). Instead, they just continue stonewalling and mocking everything Obama tries to do to bring down costs. Krugman:
"If you're serious about deficits, you shouldn't be pinching pennies now; you should be looking for ways to rein in health spending over the long term. And that means taking exactly the steps that had those G.O.P. staffers sneering."
Read Krugman's column here. For more details on the CBO, check out Wonkroom.
And in other healthcare news...
Nancy Pelosi had an amazing response yesterday to Rep. Michele Bachmann's absurd claim that the Affordable Care Act includes $105 billion in hidden spending:
"I love numbers. Real numbers, not imaginary numbers," said Pelosi on Thursday after a press conference celebrating the upcoming one-year anniversary of reform's passage. "I'm not even going to address that."
by Kate Thomas. Crossposted from SEIU.org.