CBO Director Dr. Douglas Elmendorf has posted the slides he used in a presentation Wednesday to the Institute of Medicine, titled “Health Costs and the Federal Budget.” The presentation obliterates the claims of the President and his allies about the effects of the new laws on federal health spending and the budget.
For months the President and his Budget Director correctly argued that the goal of health care reform was to “bend the cost curve down.” The projected path of per capita health spending is unsustainable and will result in three bad outcomes:
1.those with health insurance will have less money available for other needs;
2.it will be harder for the uninsured to buy insurance; and
3.government spending on Medicare and Medicaid will break federal and state budgets.
