CBO rescores Health Care Act

Re: CBO rescores Health Care Act

• MeredithE member

  

  March 2012

  From the CBO's website : http://cbo.gov/publication/43080

  In preparing the March 2012 baseline budget projections, CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have updated estimates of the budgetary effects of the health insurance coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)?the health care legislation enacted in March 2010. Those provisions:

  • Establish a mandate for most legal residents of the United States to obtain health insurance;
  • Create insurance ?exchanges? through which certain individuals and families may receive federal subsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing health insurance;
  • Significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid;
  • Impose an excise tax on certain health insurance plans with relatively high premiums;
  • Establish penalties on certain employers who do not provide minimum health benefits to their employees; and
  • Make other changes to prior law.

  The most recent previous estimate of those effects was prepared in March 2011. For more details on the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA, you can see CBO?s cost estimate for the health care legislation, which was issued in March 2010.

  The Estimated Net Cost of the Insurance Coverage Provisions Is Smaller Than Estimated in March 2011

  CBO and JCT now estimate that the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of just under $1.1 trillion over the 2012-2021 period-about $50 billion less than the agencies' March 2011 estimate for that 10-year period. (For comparison with previous estimates, these numbers cover the 2012-2021 period; estimates including 2022 can be found below.)

  The net costs--specifically the combined effects on federal revenues and mandatory spending--reflect:

  • Gross additional costs of $1.5 trillion for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), tax credits and other subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through the newly established exchanges and related costs, and tax credits for small employers,
  • Offset in part by about $0.4 trillion in receipts from penalty payments, the new excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, and other budgetary effects (mostly increases in tax revenues).

  Those amounts do not encompass all of the budgetary impacts of the ACA. They do not include federal administrative costs, which will be subject to future appropriation action. Also, they do not include the effects of the many other provisions of the law, including some that will cause significant reductions in Medicare spending relative to that under prior law and others that will generate added tax revenues relative those under prior law.

  CBO and JCT have previously estimated that the ACA will, on net, reduce budget deficits over the 2012-2021 period; that estimate of the overall budgetary impact of the ACA has not been updated.

  "HOW many US citizens and ranchers have been decapitated in Arizona by roving bands of paperless aliens, and how will a requirement that I have papers on me make that not happen?"courtesy of SueSue

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• Sisugal member

  

  March 2012

  When the ACA was voted on - the estimate was 970 Billion

  FULL implementation is 2014 -- taken out 10 years you get 2 Trillion. 

  the new excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, and other budgetary effects (mostly increases in tax revenues).  -  (revenues from increased taxation are generally inflated.  People tend to find ways to not pay additional taxes.

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