Via CSM’s The Vote blog: Health care law repeal: Why would it increase the deficit?
Two main side effects of repeal would cause this gusher of red ink, said CBO.
First, getting rid of health-care reform would mean rescinding planned cuts in federal spending on health care, largely for Medicare.
Under the terms of Obama’s health bill, government payments to Medicare Advantage – plans run by private insurers that are an alternative to traditional Medicare – are supposed to be reduced by $132 billion over a decade, for instance. (Those plans now get around 14 percent more per person than traditional Medicare does.) Payments for Medicare home health care would also be slashed by around $40 billion over ten years.
Second, repealing health-care reform would also entail rolling back scheduled tax increases and fees.
For example, individuals making over $200,000, and couples making over $250,000, face higher Medicare Part A (that’s hospital insurance) taxes under Obama’s health reforms. Their Part A tax rate is supposed to go up 0.9 percent on January 1, 2013. That’s a big money raiser, estimated to bring in $210 billion between 2013 and 2019. And it would be eliminated if the health care reform law is repealed. So would planned fees levied on insurers, medical device manufacturers, and others.
Whether one is pro-PPACA or pro-repeal, the numbers are the numbers. Further, it is clear that (at least symbolically, since this is all going nowhere), the GOP values repeal over deficit reduction. That is, actually, quite fair as politics requires tradeoffs. However, it is yet another example (two more that come to mind are here and here) that there appears to be a chasm between the GOP’s rhetoric on fiscal policy and their reality.
