NYTimes: Fantasy In Fantasy Out

From Douglas Holtz Eakin:

The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform

ON Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that, if enacted, the latest health care reform legislation would, over the next 10 years, cost about $950 billion, but because it would raise some revenues and lower some costs, it would also lower federal deficits by $138 billion. In other words, a bill that would set up two new entitlement spending programs — health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits — would actually improve the nation’s bottom line.

Could this really be true? How can the budget office give a green light to a bill that commits the federal government to spending nearly $1 trillion more over the next 10 years?

The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.  read on

So in the end the Obama Pelosi Reid strategy for reform is to lie. They are all lying liars. ( have not heard any comment from Senator Franken.)

It isn't just me, read this from Amity Shlaes at Bloomberg.com:

Health-Care Cost Lies Make Us Sing the Blues:

March 23 (Bloomberg) -- “So lie to me, lie to me, I’d rather have it that way.”

Every historic moment has its soundtrack, and passing U.S. health-care legislation is no exception. The song for this bill is “Lie to Me,” recorded by blues singer Brook Benton in 1962.

Benton’s song is a plea to the woman who cheated on him to lie to him about it and instead say everything’s fine. The tune came to mind while watching some voters applaud Democratic leaders as they promise that the new law will reduce budget deficits by $1 trillion.

“Just lie, lie, lie.”

Everyone knows the bill will widen deficits over time. Entitlement and mandate expansions always do. And everyone knows that health-care reform isn’t about fiscal rectitude. As Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote last summer, the point of the proposal “was never to generate savings over the next decade.” It was to insure the uninsured. There’s a kind of masochistic consolation in the very improbability of the Democratic promise of savings.

“Because the truth would only hurt me

And that price is just too big to pay.”  read the rest